London Super ComicCon 2016 Cosplay!

Those hip cats at SneakyZebra have put together another cool cosplay video, this time highlighting London Super Comic Con, which I like because they threw the word super in there. That's a very comic book thing to do.

I might do a bit of cosplay for Emerald City Comicon this year. The last couple years I've gone trick or treating with my son dressed up as Han Solo (a super el cheapo version I put together for a Halloween costume like 5 years ago). For the last couple years my son has gone with me to ECCC one of the three days and he always dressed up, this year he's going as a storm trooper and of course he wants me to dress in my Han Solo costume. Now, my Han Solo costume is pretty terrible. It's recognizable but it's not very good. What I might end up doing is wearing like half the costume so I look super casual. My pants with the red stripes look totally legit, maybe I'll just pair those up with a white t-shirt and do a quick spray paint job on my blaster so it looks a little better. I don't know. I want to do something fun for my son but I don't want to embarrass myself either, I guess that's the fine like you walk as a parent.

I used to be cool

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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.

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.

My Son's Top 5 Cartoons

I mentioned this on twitter a few days ago but my son is WAY more interested in watching youtube than he is watching traditional Cartoons. That doesn't mean that I haven't seen the same 5 cartoons like a thousand times. Just for fun here's a quick round up of what shows he's currently watching and what I think of them. Maybe next I'll do a top 5 youtube shows that are currently driving me insane/broke.

Paw Patrol... my nemesis. Paw Patrol is a pretty generic cartoon full of talking dogs that use teamwork and special pup packs to help out the citizens of Adventure Bay. It's Fine. It's Fine. What's not fine about it is that my kids want to watch it 30 hours a day 10 days a week. Seriously, first thing my daughter does when she gets home is grab the TV remote and start asking for "puppies". She's ONE! I've seen Chase rescue that damn chicken from the ravine more than I've seen the monorail episode of the Simpsons. I swear they just need to let that chicken die.

Whenever some old timer like myself starts spouting off about how "good" cartoons were when we were growing up I always point to Ninjago to crush their feeble argument. Seriously, watch an episode of Transformer, I dare you. They're legit terrible. Comparing it to an episode of Ninjago (Which is also just a big old blatant ad for a giant toy company) is like comparing Birdemic to Jurassic Park. My one complaint about Ninjago is that it took them like 3 seasons to pass the Bechdel Test. Seriously would it kill any of these cartoons to have more than one token girl?

Wonder Pets is the reason we have Amazon Prime. Seriously, a couple years ago a bunch of older Nickelodeon cartoons like Dora and Wonder Pets were pulled from Netflix and added to Amazon Prime. This would not stand. Something you should know about kids today, the idea of waiting for a show to be "on" is as antiquated as the buggy whip. Everything is on Netflix, On Demand or the DVR. The other day I had to explain to my son on a Monday that new Episodes of Ninjago weren't going to be on until Thursday and I might as well have been trying to explain the rules of Cricket. Spoiler: No one knows!

Teen Titans Go is probably the one cartoon my son watches that I enjoy the most. I know a lot of net nerds bag on it because it's nothing like the Teen Titans cartoon they grew up with but whatever. It's a funny show, the episode this screenshot is from is one of the funniest things I've ever seen. Cyborg throws a BBQ and all the Titans (except Beast Boy because he's a Vegetarian) get the meat sweats and can't fight crime. Oh man have I been there... the meat sweats parts, not the crime fighting part.

Wallykazam. I don't even know what this thing is, but it's on a 7am when we're getting ready so he's watched a few episodes. I think the little troll guy has a magic wand that helps him spell words. Typical liberal media.

The Lazy Parent's Lament