An Honor Just to Be Nominated

Well, the Cartoon Network team behind Operation: B.E.S.T. did not win their technical and engineering Emmy Award. These guys won. Still, it was an interesting event. The men who invented videotape received a lifetime achievement award, and I received a pair of binoculars and a bunch of other schwag. Stay tuned for photos.

Come See, Come Saw

Rocket From the Crypt, the most rockingest band of all time, is playing a farewell show on Halloween. Say it ain't so, Speedo!

Open Letter to EW

Dear Entertainment Weekly:

I have been a subscriber to your magazine for approximately 15 years, and I am a hair's breadth away from letting my subscription lapse. The reason? In my estimation, simply put, your magazine has suffered an unforgivable degradation of editorial quality over the last several years. While Entertainment Weekly is still the best mainstream mag for consumers of mass entertainment, a destructive combination of snark and bile seems to have infected your pages, leaving me mystified and angry when I put down your magazine. And believe me, the speed at which I put it down increases with each passing week.

The prime offenders:
- Self-congratulatory sections such as Rant of the Week, Ask the Critic and What to Watch
- Non-substantive photo captions that only exist to deliver a (generally weak) gag
- Interviews that turn their subjects into a joke, i.e., Stupid Questions
- Indulgent celebrity columns (Stephen King, I love you, but you need to go away)

Each of these elements is relatively harmless independently, but when evaluated together I cannot help but notice the poisonous effect that they have on your magazine. Yes, the requisite cover stories about musician/starlet/TV show du jour are fine, but it is the more insightful pieces (such as your recent profiles of Ray Harryhausen, Mitch Hedberg and this week's standout article about Bob Dylan) that have always allowed Entertainment Weekly to stand out amongst the crowd of entertainment fluff rags. I find that stories such as these are fewer and far between these days.

I hope you will take this criticism to heart -- understanding that I am not the only longtime reader who feels this way -- and also take a hard look at the direction in which your magazine is currently headed. I still believe that Entertainment Weekly is for people who are serious about entertainment. I only wish your editorial braintrust felt the same way.

Most Sincerely,

Poo-Natics

So that awful Loonatics show finally premiered, to the sounds of Mel Blanc and Chuck Jones rolling over in their graves.

Where Does He Get Those Wonderful Toys?

With my wife's blessing, I have a new display at home for my Kubrick figure collection. Check it:


It's not just Kubricks, of course, although Kubricks are my favorite. I'm pretty selective when it comes to which ones I get, and I never get crazy about completing a set (expensive and/or next to impossible). Top Row: some classic Famicom magnet scenes, a couple of Peter Bagge's "Alien Family" figures, the Happy Tree Friends PVC set and some Glico Kubricks (my first!) that came packaged with cookies. Middle Row: Marvel and DC Kubricks (my favorites!), plus a weird bear that a friend brought me from London. Bottom Row: a Japanese baby toy from Bandai, Makibishi Kubricks (Death and ninja cat), Kinnikuman (MUSCLE) Kubricks, Zelda "Four Swords" capsule toys, a couple of the first Evirob Kubricks (which I thought I would like, but I don't), two Smurf Kubricks and some Glico Ultraman figs. Sah-weet!

Intruder Alert!

When I learned how to create my own stained glass this summer, I realized that old school game graphics lent themselves perfectly to the medium.



Look closely and you'll see the humanoid hero from the Atari 2600 port of Berzerk. Viva la geekdom!

The Singing Dictionary

Recently it was brought to my attention that my favorite online dictionary, from Merriam-Webster, provides an audio pronounciation for all the words in the English language. Imagine the voice record sessions for that!

Well, now you can hear the hilarious vocal stylings of Merriam Webster on the "Dictionaraoke" website. OMG "Iron Man" is fantastic. Rock!

Music to Geek Out By

If you haven't already, you really need to pick up the EP from the coolest nerds on the block: 8 Bit Weapon.

Survey Says

Industry insiders weigh in on the Revolution controller. Interesting stuff.

Mario Manga

Some really funny -- and totally bizarre -- manga images featuring Nintendo characters can be found on this Japanese language site.

Revolution Number...WTF?

So, Nintendo revealed their mysterious Revolution controller (above) at this week's Tokyo Game Show. As has become standard by now with Nintendo revelations of this nature, the first reaction is often, "What the hell?" which is quickly followed by, "Nintendo has oatmeal between its ears" and quickly punctuated with the hopeful, "Well, maybe it's genius" and finally culminating in, "Sigh. Poor, stupid Nintendo does it again."

Mind you, I'm about as Nintendo fanboyish as they come. But with each piece of hardware the company puts out, they seem to alienate more and more of their core fanbase. I'm going to buy the Revolution anyway, but does Nintendo REALLY think that the average (translation: mainstream) gamer is really going to have the guts to get within 10 feet of that controller? When the Xbox 360 is so much more accessible? And the PS3 so much more (undoubtedly) versatile?

Not to mention this whole "ultimate backwards compatibility" issue, which clearly won't be free and is really just sad, in my opinion. Nintendo, who hasn't had a good original franchise since Pokemon (sorry, Pikimin) and relies way too much on its back catalog, is using it's ENTIRE DUSTY LIBRARY as a selling point for this new console. It's a value-add, and a great one at that, but not the main reason to buy the thing. People want new games, not old ones.

God, Nintendo is so frustrating.

Obviously, the company is still making money. It has successful games on the market (Nintendogs, Pokemon, RE4) and has a few amazing titles on the way (Zelda, at least). Nintendo makes the best and most polished first-party games in the business. I will never hate Nintendo. I just hope I can like them again.

What The--?!

If you haven't already, you should totally get goatz! (It's extreme.)

Buzz, Buzz

Some nice mentions of GameTap here and here.

Me No Like Bugs

So I found one of these crawling in my yard not too long ago. It's a Hickory Horned Devil, and it's a very large -- and totally harmless -- caterpillar. But since I have a "bug thing" it really gave me a start. I did a little nosing around on the web and discovered that it is a common sight to see one of these down south in August and September. Special thanks to What's That Bug? for their assistance in identifying this bizarro creature.

Too Bad It's Not Linkin Park

Great variation on the "hit the thing as far as possible" genre: see how far you can dropkick the Faint. Yes, that's right: hit the members of the band as far as you can.

Actually, I think this game belongs in the "inexplicable" genre.

Truth in Advertising

Jesus, pop-up ads sure are getting depressing!

3.14

I just finished reading "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel. It's a fascinating novel, really well-written, thought-provoking, problematic and totally engrossing. The ending was particularly controversial in my house.

The high-concept pitch is: a young boy survives a shipwreck and winds up in a lifeboat with an adult Bengal tiger. While there is a "man vs. nature" survival aspect to the book, it's also a meditation on religion, God, zoos, storytelling and family. There are surprising laugh-out-loud moments, too. I found the author's writing style to be very similar to Kurt Vonnegut's, a favorite of mine.

Anyway, it's not a perfect book but certainly an enjoyable one and extremely well done. It will provoke many a conversation with other readers of the book, indicated by the numerous Life of Pi "book club guides" available on the web.

Side note: The story is pretty much unfilmmable as a live-action movie. That said, I think it could make an excellent animated film in the right hands. I cannot stop thinking about what it would be like to see what Hayao Miyazaki would do with the source material. All the Miyazaki elements are there: child protagonist, ocean, the animal kingdom, nature, surreal settings, the bizarre combination of "benevolent malevolence" that you see in all his work. I want to see this movie! How can I get him to read the book???

Worst Headline Ev@r!

Just when you think Nintendo is going to get sidelined (again), they pull a fastball like this out of their hip pocket. Nintendogs looks likely to be a big hit, with 15% of DS owners picking it up in the first week of release. OK, so that means about 90 people bought it? ZING!

Suburb Thugs Unite

My sister auditioned for Freestyle 59, which is an "American Idol" style show on VH1 for rappers. (You have to send in a 59-second rap on a video.) Anyway, she didn't make the cut, but they posted her tape in the "Suburb Thuggin" category. Scroll down and feel MC Flow's flow...