Do Your Human Impression

Red Dead Redemption 2: Official Trailer #2

Wow, this game looks neat.

I'm not thrilled with idea of getting a new console just to play it but I guess at this point that's sort of tradition. When the original Red Dead Redemption came out my Xbox 360 Red Ring of Deathed me and I was already at my second free refurbish so I had to go out a buy a new one. I think they were $199 at the time.

$260 to play my favorite game of all time was well worth it though.

I'm glad this comes out in spring of 2018 and not for Christmas. I'm pretty set on getting the family a Nintendo Switch this Christmas and I don't want to have to deal with buying two new consoles right around the same time. Even I recognize that's pretty terrible money management.

Man, why can't this just come out for PC instead? Why does Rockstar hate the PC?

Shark!

TOMB RAIDER - Official Trailer #1

Yesterday my tweet feed got really worked up over the premier of the new Tomb Raider trailer. There were a lot of "Is this the first good video game movie?" takes, which first off is ridiculous. Mortal Kombat was the first good video game movie. Secondly, I don't think this trailer looks that great. Call me an old crank but this just looks like 2 hours of the cut scenes from the video game.

Now don't get me wrong, I LOVE the new Tomb Raider video games and I think they're ripe for adaptation but this almost looks to close to the source material. The action scenes don't look super cool, they kind of look ridiculous and full of questionable CGI. Also if the movie follows the breakneck pace of the video game, we might as well call it Crank 3: Jungle Boogaloo.

Which I guess would be cool... I don't know. I think I just talked my self into liking this trailer.

Jimmy Kimmel on Bill Cassidy’s Health “Care” Bill

I'm not sure when Jimmy Kimmel became the voice of political reason but F it, Donald Trump is president, anything's possible. Last night he gave a very clear and concise reason why the new Cassidy Graham healthcare bill is straight trash. He didn't end his monologue with girls bouncing on trampolines or anything but it's still worth your six minutes.

The thing I don't think most people realize or acknowledge is that insurance companies are these huge profit driven businesses. They only make money by paying out less than people pay in. I feel like a lot of Americans believe insurance is some sort of savings account, you pay in every month and when you get sick you get to make a withdrawl. That's why you see so many people fighting for lower premiums for younger healthy people. They're not pulling as much money out why should they put more money in? Why should they pay to cover all sorts of procedures they'll never, or likely never, use? They don't want to admit that the basic insurance model is socialism, with the insurance company taking 30% off the top. Everybody contributes so that the people that need to use it can.

It's a fine model when you're talking about your car or your house. It's terrible when we're talking about real human beings. No insurance company should say "sorry, you've had enough" when it comes to medical treatment. Even the shittiest people are priceless, and private insurance hinges on putting a price on everything.

On the plus side, I feel like we're closer than we've ever been to adopting a single payer system. Just ten years ago it would have been political suicide. Now the most popular Senator in the country is actively pushing a plan. That's kind of amazing.

I'm not crazy, when it comes down to it I'm pretty jaded against all things politics. I'm sure that a single payer system would be a giant clusterfuck too, but our current system, and the old system the GOP wants to go back to, is straight up class warfare, where the rich and the healthy succeed and the sick and the poor either die or go bankrupt trying to stay alive. That's about as far from the American dream as you can get.

Sorry for getting on my soapbox, next post will be about video games I promise.

Success

Unmaking Links

The Making and Unmaking of Iggy Azalea. This is a really interesting article on the rise and fall(?) of old Igloo Australia. It's funny because after reading the article it's hard to say that she didn't work hard for her success, but you could definitely make the argument that even with all that work she didn't really "earn" it. It'll be interesting to see if she ends up a flash in the pan or if her career can recover from some very strong criticism.

Hydra And Red Skull Cosplay Banned By Rose City Comic Con. I've seen these Hello Kitty Nazis at ECCC before. I guess they were at RCCC somewhere, also there was another group just dressed up as SS troopers that somehow I missed. I'm pretty fine with the ban. Portland has a bit of an issue with Neo-Nazis so even ignoring the current political climate I can see how they would want to address this in this way. Frankly with all the nut jobs out there and mass shootings going on I get a bit uncomfortable anytime I see cosplayers in realistic military gear. I'm cool with fake weapons and like Halo combat armor but some of these guys that want to dress up like characters from COD are just a bit unnerving. I guess that's a weird hair to split but I'm totally splitting it.

Fan Films to Watch Right Now. I've seen the Punisher short film listed here and it's definitely legit, really makes me wish Thomas Jane had gotten one more chance at Frank Castle. The Power Rangers one is a bit less engaging, it's too over the top and in love with its own concept. Still if you have a few minutes to burn it worth checking out this list, there's some other good ones on here.

Rose City Comic Con 2017: The Review

It was fun! The end.

Ok, I'll elaborate. This last weekend I drove down to Portland to attend Rose City Comic Con for my second time. It was a lot of fun. The convention is about half the size of Emerald City Comicon (yes, the two conventions spell the words comic con differently) but half the size is still 40,000 attendees over 3 days. It's a big convention that attracts a good amount of celebrities and comic book professionals. Since it's about a 3 hour drive I spent the night in Portland on Saturday. The original plan was to go down with my wife but something else popped up so I was flying solo.

Did I mention already that I left my pass (ie ticket) at home? Yep, I arrived to the Oregon State Convention Center about 20 minutes after the doors opened Saturday morning to realize that I had left my freaking pass back in Seattle. I'm very lucky that the convention staffers were awesome and my wife was smart texting me a couple pictures of my pass at home and I was able to get a replacement. Man, I don't know what I would have done. Drive back home? Buy tickets at the door and blow my budget? All the options were pretty crappy.

The convention itself was pretty standard RCCC fare. I bought some comics, visited some writers and artists, watched a few panels. More or less the same stuff you can do at Emerald City except there's more space to walk around because the Oregon Convention Center has a great layout. Getting to panels is a bit weird because for some reason RCCC insists on labeling the panel rooms something different than what the convention center does so none of the signage matches. However, once you've found a room they're easy to find again. I didn't catch any of the big celebrity guests this year. Weird Al was there but his panel was on the day before I drove down, William Shatner's was too late on Sunday considering I had to drive back home that night. The rest of the big celebs that actually interested me a bit had conflicts with some smaller panels on comics that I really wanted to see.

I spent about half of what I spend at ECCC, which is good because I'm still broke from plumbing issues last month. The comic book selection was great. Lots and lots of dollar bins. You can always find high priced key issues at a convention but finding really good stuff in the dollar bins is tough. I also bought some prints from a few of my favorite artists and got a couple sketch books. The best part of the whole thing is I got really inspired to produce more art. I've even committed myself to getting a booth at an artist alley in the near future. Not at RCCC or ECCC, those tables costs a ton, but at one of the smaller conventions that have popped up around the region over the last few years. Don't get me wrong most of the artists at RCCC draw circles around me, but there were a couple booths where I was like "eh, I do better work that this". And at a smaller convention the overhead is pretty low... anyway this isn't what I was writing this review.

I'm looking forward to going back to RCCC next year. I'd love to spend the full 3 days but man, getting a hotel was pricey. Also I don't think I want to go by myself next year. If my wife can't come I'm definitely taking my son. Walking around all day looking at cool stuff but not really sharing it with anyone is kinda boring. It's cool for a couple hours but then you find yourself eating dinner alone at the bar and it's like... ugh. Making friends with strangers is a game for 20 year olds, not 40 year olds.

Economics 101

Best of Eric Andre Show

You ever watch the Eric Andre show? I've caught a handful of episodes when I'm up late looking for something on TV to drown out the silence while drawing. At times it's really funny. Kind of reminds me of the old Tom Green show. When your entire schtick hinges on zany behavior it's inevitable that some things will fall flat. The 46 minute highlight reel is probably too long for most to sit through but I watched about half of it the other night. Lots of good stuff in there.

I read somewhere that a lot of the guests he had on his show were completely unfamiliar with it so some of those shocked reactions are genuine. I'd love to see some follow up on that, like a quick interview with the guests after they're leaving the studio. It looks like a few celebrities had fun with it, while others probably fired their publicist.

Happy Force Friday Everyone!

Did you know it was Force Friday today? Do you even know what Force Friday is? Basically it's the day our Disney overlords have decided to make merch for the next Star Wars movie available in stores. Some stores are doing "events" but for the most part its a big social media ploy to get people talking about cool new toys.

And no new Star Wars toy is cooler than the UCS (Ultimate Collectors Series) Millennium Falcon. It's been a good 10 years since Lego has released a UCS Falcon and this one makes the old one look like a pile of crap. It's roughly 7,000 pieces strong and will only run you about $800. I'm not going to lie, I'm tempted to buy one and store it in my garage for the next 10 years. The UCS Falcon that they made 10 years ago is incredibly expensive on the secondary market. It cost something like $300 new and now in the box unopened they can go for around $1,500.

Considering this is the second UCS Falcon they've made and it's already really expensive, I doubt you'll see that some sort of return on investment as the original set but it's still pretty tempting. Of course if my son ever found out that I bought one of these and never let him play with it he's probably kill me in my sleep. Maybe I'm better off just admiring it from afar.