Three PS3s

This guy totally has three PS3s. I'll be honest with you, I had no idea people were this funny back in 2009. I mean 2011 sure, 2011 everyone was funny but 2009? That's like the stone ages for youtube comedy. I hope that Christmas surprise was awesome. It happened 6 years ago, I guess I could go look it up on youtube but that would be like work or something.

Overwatch: The Review

Over the last week I've put in about 15 hours on Overwatch. Impressive considering I've also changed the oil in my car, done 4 loads of laundry, painted a wall, organized a shitload of comics AND mowed the lawn. Or maybe it's not impressive. I have no idea how you binge play games. 15 hours in a week might be chump change. With everything else I had going on this week it felt like 100 hours.


Overwatch is a team based, multiplayer, first person shooter. There's a big emphasis on teamwork. There's no deathmatch or even a team deathmatch. Players that go to work for themselves will find themselves on the losing end of most matches. There are no RPG elements either. You can tinker with how your character looks and sounds a bit, but there's no leveling up for increased firepower or better weapons. Matches are quick and if you don't work as a team they will be even quicker. It's a lot like Team Fortress, TF2 or TFC, take your pick. In that aspect the game feels like a bit of a throwback. It's the anti-Call of Duty.


The graphics probably aren't going to drop any jaws, but the worlds and the characters are bright and vibrant. Everything is sharp and crisp, regular attacks look cool and special attacks look cooler. Each character feels like it has it's own personality. It doesn't just feel like you're switching guns or load outs. There is no one unbeatable character. It reminds me a lot of SFII in that regard. Sure some characters are easier to pick up, but everyone has a bad matchup. Everyone is vulnerable and everyone is potent at the same time. You might find yourself stuck in a match where one character feels invincible but a new game and a new map and it's like everyone starts over as square one. After playing for a few hours you discover that certain combinations of characters can work better than others. It's not just enough to have a "tank" and a "healer" on your squad but you need to have the right tank and the right healer. There are a couple tweeks I'd like to see down the road. But Overall I feel like Blizzard has developed a very balanced game.


If there's any criticism to the game it's the lack of maps and game types. There are 4 different game types, and each type has 3 maps. That's not a ton. Especially since games are in the 10 minute range, if you play for a few hours you will see the same map a lot. Also the maps themselves don't hold a lot of secrets. They're probably a bit too straight forward for their own good. Still, Blizzard has promised that new characters and maps are coming and they're included in the cost of the game, not DLC. Hard to beat that for a game that's only $39.99.

Final Verdict: Overwatch is a must buy. Everyone should have a copy. I might get one for my parents.

Nuclear Links

Never Mind A Female James Bond, Someone Should Adapt ‘Velvet’ As A Movie. This times a thousand. Velvet is easily one of the best comics I'm reading right now and it's ripe for a movie adaption. It follows Velvet Templeton a former spy who is dragged back into the spy world after a former partner (and lover) is killed. If you're looking for a female James Bond this is totally it. Unfortunately the last period spy movie A Man From UNCLE bombed pretty bad last summer so I don't know if there are any studios with the balls to make this. A man can dream though, right?

Star Trek:TNG One-Piece Swimsuit. That's not a terrible looking suit. I mean it's no R2-D2 swimsuit but it's definitely Riker approved. I like that if a girl is wearing the blue one you can make a ton of "for science" jokes. I'm guessing at least 3 or 4 of these will show up at Comic-Con this year.

Kodak Had a Secret Nuclear Reactor Loaded With Enriched Uranium Hidden In a Basement. That doesn't sound dangerous at all. Way to go Kodak!

21 Defaced Dollar Bills That Are Artistic Masterpieces. I wish I had the time or money to do a few of these. Seriously, those Dragon Ball Z ones are done on $100 bills! I don't like spending a seventy five cents per page on the paper I use now. I couldn't using hundred dollar canvases.

That's Some Racist Laundry

I randomly stumbled across this ad for the Chinese detergent brand Qiaobi. It is SUPER RACIST. It's definitely no Mr Sparkle.

Star Wars: Revenge of The Jedi Trailer

The official YouTube channel of the Oscars somehow unearthed this trailer for Return of the Jedi from when it was still called Revenge of the Jedi. There's not much too it. Trailers back then were way different than the ones you see today. Can you imagine if The Force Awakens trailer had been that sparse? Still it's cool and a good way for me to take a break from all the comic book nonsense on twitter and facebook today.

They Did What to Captain America???

SPOILERS for Captain America #1! I repeat I am about to spoil the big reveal in Captain America #1 that has already been on the front page of Facebook, Twitter and USA Today. You ready? You, might want to sit down for this....

Captain America is an agent of Hydra. Shocking right? RIGHT? Can you at least pretend to be shocked?

Depending on what kind of nerd you are you're either completely nonplussed by this or you're filled with so much righteous anger and indignation you're quite literally tweeting your rage at former Captain America writer Ed Brubaker.

Hey everybody, I don't work for Marvel comics anymore, and have no say in what they do. My advice would be to relax see where the story goes

— Ed Brubaker (@brubaker) May 25, 2016

So far my absolute favorite reaction I've seen on facebook was the guy saying this was the end of Marvel. Like the end end, this was going to cause them to go out of business. Which I guess would mean Disney would have to go under too. There you are, Hydra just killed Mickey Mouse.

Now I had no intention of picking up Captain America #1, but I might now. The guy writing it Nick Spencer is a really good writer, I can't think of a single book of his that I've picked up that I didn't like. I haven't picked up Captain America in a while but this sounds like a good place to get back on the horse. Captain America has never been a really great selling title, my guess is that people with the loudest response to this stopped reading Cap a long time ago, so really their complaints are kind of irrelevant.

Of course, this is 'Murica. Complaining about something we know nothing about is kind of our thing, so I guess they have every right to do that. I do that all the time, you think I'm really going to watch the new Adam Sandler movie before I dismiss it as complete garbage?

Anyone that's too bent out of shape about this should probably remember that time they killed Superman, or Captain America, or made Spider-Man a clone, or replaced Bruce Wayne Batman with Commissioner Gordon in a robot suit. It's just comics.

Mirror's Edge Catalyst: Launch Trailer

Look at that, they finally got around to making another Mirror's Edge game... I'm sure this has been around for quite some time given that it's available in stores in June but I'm old and busy with stuff. I'm probably going to be way too busy playing Overwatch to check this out anytime soon but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate how good this trailer looks. Seriously, those graphics look tight. This might be a 2017 Steam Summer Sale purchase.

I bought Overwatch

Last night I put my foot down and politely asked my wife if I could buy Overwatch. It was kind of funny. She first asked me how much it costs, then before I could answer she said that she couldn't say no considering she just got back from a week in the Philippines. Oh yeah, last week my wife was in the Philippines for work so I was home alone with the kiddos all week. It was fun. I took the week off so while they were at school or daycare I was able to do the mundane things like grocery shopping and laundry plus work on some projects around the home I've been meaning to get to. I thought it was going to be tougher than it was. I mean it wasn't easy or anything but it was still kinda fun. I felt like I was more engaged with the kids than I usually am and I'm hoping I've started to develop some good habits for keeping the house clean and organized. Anyway, not the point.

Turns out I haven't bought a video game for myself since the last Steam Summer sale and I haven't bought a new FPS since Battlefield 3. I can't even remember the last FPS I bought for the PC. Half Life 2 maybe? I've played some Fallout 3 but that hardly counts, plus when I played that I didn't use the mouse keyboard, I used my Xbox controller. I am sooo rusty.

I started playing the Overwatch tutorial with the Xbox controller and without some sort of aim-assist I couldn't hit anything. I never actually made it out of the tutorial last night, by the time I had downloaded the game it was already sort of late. I dinked around for about 20 minutes and called it a night. I figured it was probably my last good nights sleep for the next month or two.

The game looks great and plays really smooth. I was getting about 60fps on high graphics settings with my new gaming rig. I like all the character designs and the controls seem easy enough, nothing to complicated to have to try and remember on the fly. I get the feeling just from the tutorials that this is one of those games that's easy to learn but is going to be tough to master. It looks like memorizing and figuring out the best tactics on each level is probably going to be the key. There's like 20 or so characters you can choose from each with a special ability, but after sampling a few of them I'm not 100% sure that who you play is going to be more important than how you play.

I'll try and keep everyone updated on how the game goes. Maybe do a proper review at the end of the week. If you want to hit me up on Battle.net my username is Newbachu.

Kevin's Ideas

via PoorlyDrawnLines

Star Trek: Beyond

Well this new trailer for Star Trek: Beyond has less dirtbikes and Beastie Boys' songs. I guess that's progress. Considering this is directed by Justin Lin I guess we should just be glad the Enterprise doesn't run on NOS and a turbo charged Nissan 4 liter.

Now that we have good Star Wars movies can we go back to get a couple good Star Trek movies? I understand that you can't have two hours of neutral zone treaty negotiations or holodeck accidents in a big Hollywood blockbuster. Still, there are plenty of great Star Trek movies that straddle the line of old school sci-fi futurism and big old blow em up action.

Also if we could stop blowing up the Enterprise that would be great. Thanks.

Batman: Return to Arkham Trailer

Talk about cash grab. WB Games and Rocksteady are re-releasing Batman: Arkham Asylum and Arkham City on the PS4 and Xbone. Now don't get me wrong, I totes understand taking an old game and upgrading it with better graphics. Over the last 20 years I think I've bought 3 different versions of Syd Mier's Pirates, every one of them plays exactly the same, the only difference is the graphics. But these two Batman games came out like 5 and 6 years ago. Instead of Return to Arkham they should have just called it Batman: Arkham 2 The Search for More Money.

King of the Hill meets Silver Surfer

Hey kids, remember when Silver Surfer met Hank Hill? No? Well the late 90s were a pretty weird time.

Get this, King of the Hill debuted in 1997. That's almost 20 years ago. What the hell time? Can you ease off the throttle just a bit? I have kids here I'm trying to create special memories with. Speaking of kids, this weekend my wife is going out of town for work leaving me to play Mr Mom for a full week. So if the dank posts dry up you'll know it's because my children have killed me and are living off my corpse. Just like Lord of the Flies!

Voltron: Legendary Defender

I don't know if I've written about it here or not but Netflix is doing a reboot of Voltron. I guess that's cool. I remember watching Voltron when I was a kit but I couldn't tell you anything about it other than there was Robot Voltron and Lion Voltron and you weren't allowed to like them both.

The trailer looks good enough. Kind of a modern update of traditional late 80s, early 90s anime. I'll give it a try with the kiddos. So far we haven't really had any luck with modern remakes of old cartoons. Thundercats, Transformers and GI Joe have all flopped at our house. Plus when you already have awesome shows like We Bare Bears and Be Cool Scooby Doo (wait, there's a remake!) it's hard to fit something new in the rotation.

Gallon of Links

I Drank A Gallon Of Water A Day For 30 Days. I really need to do this. I know I suffer from dehydration pretty much constantly. The only days I don't are days I play soccer when I'm consciously drinking extra water. I get migraines way too often and I'm always tired. I'm not sure about the carrying around a gallon jug with me all day but I'm sure there's someway I can make it work. I have next week off, maybe I'll start then.

Wolverine 3 Will be R-Rated, and Star a 'Bold, Different' Wolverine. It sure sounds like Wolverine 3 will be as close to an adaption of Old Man Logan Fox can do. I say close because the two major bad guys in OML are a family of Hulks and a Spider-Man villain. I'm 99.9% sure they're going to have to rework that.

Old Man Logan is one of those stories that's good but not really great. It's essentially Unforgiven but with Wolverine, which really is a can't miss idea. If they get even a half way competent writer and director on the project this is going to make a billion dollars.

Mario makes leap to Minecraft. I know the new Nintendo is rumored to be less than a year away but man I still really want a WiiU. There's just so many cool games on it. Maybe the price will drop this Christmas. I have zero problem playing old games on it, probably the only game that would be horribly outdated would be Splatoon, because I'm guessing there's not a lot of people on-line playing it anymore. Everything else like Mario Maker, and Captain Toad Treasure Tracker would still be cool as hell.

The new Pirates of the Caribbean at Shanghai Disneyland is amazing. I am ready to go to Disneyland. Unfortunately my daughter isn't quite ready yet. Maybe in 2 or 3 more years we'll make a big trip of it. I want to do the full meal deal where we stay at one of the Disney hotels but I'm not sure if I'm ready for a second and third mortgage on the house. The smart thing to do would be to start saving money now, but I'll probably just buy a bunch of scratch tickets. Someone's got to win, right?

Make It Real: Captain America Electromagnet Shield

James The Hacksmith (might not be his real name) decided to make a shield just like Captain America's. You know, one that defied all laws of physics. It's pretty cool. I mean it requires like 30 pounds of electromagnets and it still doesn't bounce off several henchmen with just one toss but I certainly wouldn't be upset if I got one for my birthday. Hint hint.

LUCHASAURUS!

Holy shit you guys, I am sooooo done with everything right now. The kids were a nightmare yesterday, I failed again at changing the oil in my car, we have ants everywhere in our kitchen, and work... omg work. I can't even. Maybe if I watch this wrestling dinosaur on loop for about an hour I can salvage the day.

Captain America: Civil War: The Review

Hey, this movie was pretty good! See you tomorrow...


I guess I'll elaborate in a spoiler free sort of way. A lot of net nerds are calling Captain America: Civil War, Avengers 2.5. With the size of the cast and the Iron Man v Captain America story line it definitely felt less like a Captain America movie and more like an Avengers film. I thought the filmmakers did a good job balancing all the characters, It never felt too overcrowded and every character got one or two small moments to shine. However, my main gripe with the movie is that they tried to tell two different stories. The Civil War story line where all the Avengers fight over a piece of legislation passed by the UN and a second WAY more interesting story revolving the Winter Soldier and the past crimes he has committed.

Maybe I'm crazy, I know as a big comic book fan I'm supposed to be obsessed over "who would win in a fight?", but I'm not. You know who wins in a fight between the Hulk and Thor? Whoever the writer wants to win.

I still enjoyed the movie plenty. The sheer spectacle of the thing was worth the price of admission. It's just at the end I felt like we were left with yet another Marvel movie with an underwhelming villain, which is INSANE to think about. Marvel has sooo many great villains yet out of 13 "main Marvel movies" the only two villains that really stick out in my mind are Loki and Ultron. A lot of net nerds have already declared Civil War the best Marvel movie to date, and while I think it's definitely one of the better ones, I'm not sure it cracks my top 5. I give it like a B+. It's the same feeling I had after watching Age of Ultron. I liked it a bunch but I felt like there were still some flaws.

Official Battlefield 1 Trailer

Well that didn't take long, less than 24 hours after images from Battlefield 1 were leaked, Activision released a pretty lengthy reveal trailer. It's almost like they knew those images would be leaked and they had the trailer all ready to go. Of course I can't imagine a big company like Activision gaming the system like that. I mean that would be crazy!

Oh yeah, this looks cool as hell and now I'll have 7 Nation Army stuck in my head all weekend.

Alternate Links

The Next Battlefield Is Called Battlefield 1, Set In Alternate History WW1. I can honestly say I don't think I've ever played a WWI video game. If I have it certainly wasn't a FPS, much less a big old on-line squad based FPS. It could be really interesting, revolvers and rifles, bi-planes and blimps. Ok, Activision you definitely have my attention with this one. Don't screw it up like you did Battlefield 4.

A New ‘Star Wars’ Game Is Coming From Key Minds Behind The ‘Call Of Duty’ And ‘God Of War’ Series. While the idea of another Star Wars: Battlefront game doesn't exactly float my boat the idea of a Star Wars game done by the God of War guys totes does. Don't get me wrong, I like First Person Shooters and all that but I really would like a good single player Star Wars adventure game. It doesn't have to be Knights of the Old Republic or anything but there's a big old Star Wars universe out there, if you can't squeeze a good single player action/adventure story out of it you should probably just stop making video games.

Talking To Frank Cho, Man Of Outrage, About Attracting Women. Frank Cho has received a lot of attention in the comic industry the last year or two, and not just for his talent but because he's not afraid to poke the bear. In this case the bear being people looking to clean up the image of comics in an effort to make them more inclusive of women and minorities. This is one of those things where I totally see both sides.

I understand that for years the comic book industry was an old boys, club catering to men and it was detrimental to the industry as a whole. However, I like Cho as an artist, I've bought a ton of his work. I met him briefly a few years back and he couldn't have been a nicer guy. I don't know, I just want everyone to get along. I want to live in a fantasy world where comics are 100% inclusive to everyone and no one has to feel bad about occasionally looking at She-Hulk's butt. Is that so terrible?

Go Go Power Rangers New Costumes

Apparently Entertainment Weekly is your go to source on all things Power Rangers. First Rita Repulsa now they have the first pictures of the new Power Ranger Suits. I'm guessing in another week or two they'll have pictures of the Zords.

Two things: First, (cough)Iron Man ripoff (cough). Second, I do not remember the Pink or Yellow Ranger being stacked like that. Who is producing this thing? Is it Michael Bay? It's his non-union equivalent, Miguel Bahía isn't it?

Death Star Viaduct

It's revenge of the 5th (groan) today so lets go with more Star Wars stuff. A couple days ago the city of Seattle released some drone footage of the new viaduct (which is actually a tunnel). It's pretty cool looking, cool enough that I almost put it on my blog by itself. When some uber-nerd combined the viaduct footage with the trench run on the OG Death Star I had to put it up.

I'll tel you one of the joys of living south of Seattle is that the viaduct closure this week hasn't bothered me at all. I know it's been a total shit-show for anyone north of downtown but my commute this week has been the easiest it's ever been, especially in the morning. It's been nice getting to work before everyone else, this morning when I get in I might crank up some Snoop Dogg, or is it still Snoop Lion? That Lion thing really came out of nowhere, didn't it?

Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens Gameplay Trailer

It's Star Wars day so lets just make all the posts about Star Wars (all two of them). Here's the gameplay trailer for Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens. It looks pretty good. I might just pick this one up when it right away. Usually with the Lego games I've found that if you wait a couple months they'll show up for hella cheap on Steam. It's weird that they're making a game out of a single movie considering most Lego games are pulled from trilogies but The Lego Movie game proved to me that it could be done well. I'm all in.

The Best of Star Wars on TV

It's Star Wars day, so here's a list of what I consider to be the best Star Wars TV shows. It's completely arbitrary and I don't do a great job recapping the episodes, enjoy!

1. Star Wars: Rebels
I'll be honest, I haven't seen every episode of Star Wars: Rebels but what I have seen I've enjoyed A TON. When it premiered I didn't get Disney XD so I had to catch it on random re-runs on the regular Disney channel and it was hard to keep up with. Even now that I get Disney XD it's not in HD so you know... first world problems. The 10 or so episodes I have seen are fantastic. It's definitely on my binge watch list. It's one of those shows that even if it wasn't attached to Star Wars and was just it's own thing I'd still totally watch. I'm really hoping a few of the characters from Rebels find their way into the new movies. That would be pretty sweet.


2. The Muppet Babies Star Wars Episode
There's plenty of people out there that think the Muppet Babies are the worst. Let me tell you, those people are the worst. The Star Wars episode of Muppet Babies, Gonzo's Video Show, was fantastic.

3. Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure
Again, there are plenty of Caravan of Courage haters out there. Those people can get bent. Caravan of Courage is fantastic. A Family crash lands on Endor, the children are separated from their parents and need the Ewoks help to find them. Sure it would have been cooler if the Ewoks had tried to eat the kids at least once but hey, beggars can't be choosers.

4. Lego Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Out,
There's been a surprising amount of Lego Star Wars tv shows. The parody, The Empire Strikes Out is probably the best of them. There's some genuinely funny moments in it, there's a Han shot first joke bit in there that always makes me laugh.

5. The Muppet Show Star Wars Episode
When the Muppet Show was on TV I was just a bit too young to really get it. I mean I loved it, it was total destination TV for our family but after watching a few episodes recently there's zero way I got any of the jokes. I see that with my son now, there's shows he watches that he really gets into but you can tell so much of it is going over his head. Anyway, Pigs in Space with Luke Skywalker was rad.

6. Star Wars: Clone Wars
The mini series by Samurai Jack creator Genndy Tartakovsky was really good. So good that it pretty much ruined the other Clone Wars series for me. I mean I've heard it's pretty good once you get past the movie that kicks it all off, but it's no Tartakavsky so who cares?

7. Ewoks: The Battle for Endor
Unlike Caravan of Courage this movie is pretty terrible. It's like all of the worst aspects of Caravan of Courage turned up to 11. I don't know why I put it here. RIP Wilford Brimley, you'll always be my Postmaster General.

8. Star Wars Holiday Special
The Star Wars Holiday Special really is terrible. If you only watch like 10 minutes of it on youtube it can be pretty enjoyable in a watching a train wreck sort of way. The production quality is terrible, the writing is awful, the actors range from disinterested to drunk and or high. There's a famously terrible song sung by Carrie Fisher and an horrible looking animated cartoon that is only notable because it introduces Boba Fett. It's just the worst. Nathan Rabin of the AV Club famously wrote, "I'm not convinced the special wasn’t ultimately written and directed by a sentient bag of cocaine". It's really amazing that some studio exec at CBS saw the finished product and was like, sure lets put this on prime time network TV for 2 hours!

RIP New Sonics Arena, XXXX-2016

In case you didn't hear, yesterday the Seattle City Council voted No on a proposed street vacation (clearing a road of traffic) that is needed to build a new basketball stadium south of downtown Seattle. It's not quite the death knell for the proposed arena but it does undo most of the work hopeful new owner Chris Hansen has put into moving a NBA team back to Seattle.

Overall the issue is pretty complicated and I don't want to write a dozen paragraphs about it, I just can't believe the Sonics have been gone for 8 years now and we're not even close to getting a team back. I remember when they left EVERY pundit they talked to on the radio was positive the Sonics would be back in a few years. Seattle was too big of a market, basketball was too popular here. This wasn't a Kansas City Kings scenario or anything, there's a team right around the corner!

Lies, all lies. I don't think anyone was being malicious just optimistic. The truth of the matter is moving a sports franchise is a big deal, it feels like it happens all the time but it really doesn't and when it does it because a city is DESPERATE for a team. When the Sonics moved to OKC they already had a stadium built, just sitting there waiting for someone. Seattle just isn't going to do that, politics around here are weird. Even if they weren't weird, how do you justify spending like $500 million of public funds to build a stadium for a team that doesn't exist? We need to save that money for when the new tunnel running under the waterfront eventually collapses.

I guess I'll just have to keep ignoring the NBA. I hear Dell Curry is having a really great year.

In The Old Days

via PoorlyDrawnLines

Are You A Mutant?

Jake Roper has a youtube channel that sort of specializes in comparing the science of fictional worlds to the science of the boring old real world. This video on DNA mutations is pretty interesting but not overly sciency that it starts to get really dry and boring. I had no idea I was taking so much DNA damage, I need to get some better armor. Does Mithril defend against DNA damage or just magic swords?