After five months of getting screwed around with by Passport Canada, they finally came through. Tomorrow morning at 6:30 AM, I’m flying out to Albany, New York, to attend the wedding of one of my best friends. Pictures will follow, of course.
Still no clue as to what kind of schedule I’m looking at. Either Tuesday or Wednesday, we’re going on an actual NYC tour. The rest of the time before the wedding on Saturday will probably be spent hanging out around Albany, playing World of Warcraft, or going to see the Simpsons Movie. You never know.
Anyway, this’ll be one of the last things the internet hears from me in the next little while, so everybody keep your nose clean. I’ll be watching.
I think we can all agree that the 80’s gave birth to some of the greatest toy franchises and Saturday morning cartoons ever made. Between GI Joe, the Transformers, He-man, Jem, Thundercats, Gummi Bears, and a billion other classic heroes, there existed a little known, but equally cool, short-lived franchise called “Dino-Riders.”
The idea of the show was simple. The Valorians’ spaceship crash-lands onto Earth millions of years ago with the evil Rulon in tow. Now, to continue their battle, they enlist the aid of local dinosaurs. The Valorians use telepathy to recruit dinosaurs to their cause, while the Rulons enslave the giant lizards with technology. Then they equip their mounts with lasers, rockets, and all kinds of cool gadgetry – then go at each other.
The cartoon series itself only lasted only 13 episodes. Sadly, my family did not have the cable privileges to let me watch any of them, but I got to see more than enough commercials for the toys, and I think this is where the franchise really shined.
Now, years later, I’m looking back and thinking “That is a REALLY sweet commercial.” I totally want that collection. I mean, that Stegosaurus just OWNED a mechanical Tyrannosaurus! I fortunate enough to own some of the smaller toys, like the Monoclonius and the Deinonychus, but I always had the T-Rex and Diplodocus on my Christmas list every year.
I think this is one of the lesser-known franchises that’s long overdue for a comeback. What with the new Transformers craze going on and every movie studio rushing to buy up the rights to every 80’s cartoon, I think the world could use a little more robot-dinosaur-on-robot-dinosaur action, and this may actually be the right time to bring it back.
Anybody else got any favorite franchises they want to see comebacks for?
Over the weekend, I endured and heavily enjoyed my very first paintball tournament, and while I was shot out of every game I played and only killed two people in three hours (one of which included my own team mate) I couldn’t help but come up with a few suggestions – nay – improvements to make the game a lot more fun and exciting than you ever thought imaginable.
1. The Ticking Clock
A good Russian Roulette approach to the game is to have someone fit one of the paintguns with an explosive device prior to gamestart, and equip all of them with a one-minute ticking countdown, set to blow paint in your face if the game isn’t finished in time. Naturally, this would create mass panic for the first minute of the game as everyone races about to end it as quickly as possible, unsure as to whether or not they have the exploding gun. After the poor sucker receives a burning face full of paint, everyone else can breathe a sigh of relief and resume shooting each other normally.
In fact, just adding more explosives in general is an overall improvement on the game. Landmines, paint grenades, trip wires – anything to keep everyone on their toes.
2. Public Paintballin’
While the courses are nice and everybody LOVES hiding behind wooden fences and tire piles, why not soup the courses up a notch by donning some disguises and attending a paintball tournament inside your own favorite restaurant? Or how about Walmart? Or if you’re feeling really risky, go nuts in the bank during day hours and see if you can finish your game before the police arrive! Remember: where there’s innocent civilians, there’s fun.
3. Moving Obstacles
Why should your opponents be the only thing you have to worry about on the course? It’s one thing to have a group of people advancing on you from the front, but it’s another to have boulders rolling down the hill at you from behind. Even laser-guided paint turrets and ninjas-for-hire hiding in the trees can turn a friendly game into an catastrophic warzone. For the more adventurous of heart, try taking your game beyond the paintball range, onto a busy highway, and dodge vehicles as you try to hit your friends with paint! Good luck climbing on THAT car, Steve!
4. Live Bears
This one doesn’t even need an explanation.
5. Mano-A-Mano
In the final moments of battle, when one person is left on each team, the “Mortal Kombat” theme music starts blasting through the trees and both people are required to drop their weapons and engage in hand-to-hand combat, fighting each other for everyone else’s amusment. An excellent occasion to make money on the sidelines as you watch your friends battle each other into submission/to death. For more professional players, bayonettes may be used.
Watching the AFI’s Top 100 Movies special the other day gave me some ideas on what might have happened if some of the top movies of all time wound up written and directed by the wrong people…
Imagine, if you while, waking up at 6 ‘o clock every morning, taking your shower, getting dressed, doing your hair, eating breakfast, making lunch, driving to work, entering your number, swiping your card, and getting into the office by seven. And doing it all without coffee. For non-coffee drinkers like myself, this is a normal routine, and all you end up doing is just showing up in the office a little groggy every morning.
Now, also imagine it’s been raining all night. I mean, in buckets and hail and everything. Moisture is rising to higher altitudes and the air pressure’s dropping like crazy outside. Groggy in the morning = I did not see what was coming next.
I should also mention at this point that I work in a sealed building, because the second I swiped my card this morning, science attacked. The door slammed right into my face, knocking me off my feet, as a hurricane of air pressure exploded out of the building.
Needless to say, I was awake for the rest of the morning.
Six weeks ago, I traveled yonder south to the dark and magical land of Calgary to attend the release of our project. For those of you unfamiliar with Calgary, here’s what it looks like.
And here’s a hippy van.
And here’s a toilet you shouldn’t drink from.
And here’s what’s behind door #2.
And here’s the Apocalypse.
And here’s another picture of a toilet I took.
And that’s my Calgary adventure! Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did! Have a great night, everyone!
But seriously, it shouldn’t take five weeks to replace a broken fan I’ll commend Staples on taking $40 off the repair bill for my troubles, but I think I’ll take it to a real place next time. One that can get it done in twenty minutes, like Memory Express who just installed some new RAM for me.
I’m glad I’ve got access to my blog archives again. I can quite recollect how I’ve been wasting my time these three remaining weeks, but for some reason I’m now partially fluent in Italian and can bench-press 150 lbs.
Well, now I’m sitting on the couch with lappy in my lap again. Time to get back to nerding.
Originally posted April 29th, 2007
When I signed up at the gym, I inquired about theft in the locker room and was recommended I buy a combination lock to protect my belongings. What I didn’t anticipate was that the only thing anyone would ever bother stealing from me was the combination lock itself.
It’s mostly my fault because every here and there, I’ll accidentally leave it hanging on the locker door as I leave. But I’ll remember it ten minutes later and come back to discover someone’s already swiped it. I haven’t even been going to the gym for two weeks, and I’m already on my third lock. Which is weird, because in hour long periods where I was without one, no one’s ever taken any of my stuff.
So who is it that can afford $40+ a month to go to the gym, but is driven to steal $5 combination lock? And why didn’t they steal anybody else’s? I could swipe about 5 or 6 every time I go in there.
To everyone reading this, please focus all your psychic energy on globally locating anyone who steals combinations locks and delivering a sharp stabbing pain to the back of their head so I will not have spent ten extra dollars in shame.
Oh, yeah. And I saw “Hot Fuzz” on Saturday. I have nothing bad to say about that movie.
In a non-Blog related incident, I got around to finishing my new music video, “Woolongs for Nothing.” It’s mostly a treat for the Cowboy Bebop fans (and one very special girl) and it’s a parody on the old Dire Straits “Money for Nothing” video, meaning a lot of it had to be self-animated in a 3D application. This will probably be one of my last AMVs since I’m wanting to steer away from fan-projects and make more mainstream material after I get some other things off my plate.
In the meantime, I’ve been going to the gym a lot lately and just finished coming back from a huge shopping trip, having finally updated my wardrobe after five years. Otherwise, I’m still working and getting out, so that’s my life in a nutshell.
Oh, and I added a Blog Archive to the menu in case anyone misses the evil bunny.
