Look, sir, a header!

Finally got around to adding one. Ain't she a beaut? It's an Atlas mech from BattleTech punching another mech in what could approximate its face. No idea what type of mech the punchee is, though. I'm going to find out, because otherwise it'll annoy the frak out of me.

The Black Knight Rises is an Oscar contender for sure

Via nerdyanddirty.

Oh my god, people are frelling morons

Remember kids, just say no to crack.

The real mindfuck? This actually happened. This is from Our Valued Customers, a webcomic based on actual things the creator, Tim Chamberlain sees and hears at the comic book store that he works at. So yeah, some girl actually had her ears surgically altered to look like elf ears. There is but one response to this kind of fuckery: the double facepalm.

Sassy Alfred is the sassiest butler to ever butler

So sassy!

Picture via rebekahloves (NSFW).

Happy Gary Gygax Day!

Note: Originally posted at Swords, Dragons, and Nerds.

Going by the plethora of posts I've been seeing, today is a geek holiday marking what would have been the 74th birthday of Gary Gygax, creator of D&D and father of roleplaying games in general. While I've never played Dungeons and really, only ever played a pen and paper RPG once in my entire life, I am a fan of RPG video games and because of that, I raise my glass in solemn and heartfelt thanks to him. Without him, there probably would not be a Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Star Ocean, Mass Effect, or Dragon Age series.

Thanks Gary!

Picture via Futurama Wiki. Oh, and hat tip to Eli Arndt, since I stole his idea of using a picture from the episode of Futurama that Gygax was in.

The New Watercooler

Click to embiggen.

The internet, where you can sit around and bullshit about anything and everything without ever putting on a pair of pants.

Picture via Surviving the World.

The Hobbit duology might become a trilogy

I've felt a disturbance in the Nerd Force, as if millions of wallets cried out and were suddenly silenced...

Apparently, Peter Jackson and the studios involved are mulling it over and if they pull the trigger, Jackson will expand the duology into a trilogy using the copious amount of notes Tolkien left behind. I'm questioning whether a third movie is needed. I mean, it was set as a two-parter up until now, so why not just keep it that way? Basically, I'm whelmed by this news.

I'm still 'meh' about Man of Steel, but here's the trailer anyways

Sorry, I just can't get over how terrible the new costume is. Hit the jump for a rant.

Huh, I didn't realize "Super-Bulge" was one of his powers.

Did Jim Lee design it? No, if it was Lee, the costume would be covered in needless lines. If it nipples, then we could blame Joel Schumacher. Then again, that bulge could be a variation of bat-nipples. Not that it matters to me; I don't plan on watch Man of Steel when it comes out. Initially, I thought it was because of how hideous the costume looks, but I don't think that alone would keep me away. Instead, I think it's more of a fatigue and general disinterest in superhero movies. I dwelled on it for a bit and realized that the disinterest is because Marvel and DC are playing it safe.

What I mean is that both companies are only doing movies that they know will be successful. Batman is a safe bet, as is Spider-Man. Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Watchmen, Avengers, etc. Sure, they've done movies about Jonah Hex and Ghost Rider, but those are exceptions that prove the rule. Ant-Man and Guardians of the Galaxy are moves in the right direction for Marvel, but how about Black Panther and Luke Cage movies? After all, it was an African-American superhero that revived the comic book movie genre. On the DC side, how about a Static Shock movie? Some movies featuring female superheroes would be nice too, Catwoman and Elektra be damned.

Basically, as long as Marvel and DC keep focusing on their A-list, I'm not terribly interested in watching them when they hit theaters. I'm not boycotting them, but my interest will have to be really, really piqued to want to see their movies. At the same time, where's Dark Horse, Image, Oni and all of these other labels? Hellboy and Scott Pilgrim all you guys have to offer? If so, then wow, that is sad as fuck.

Picture via Collider. Cock bulge via somebody with clearly too much time on their hands.

Meanwhile, in an alternate Bat Universe...

(via Dorkly)

The tragedy in Colorado and the blame game

By now, unless you've been living in a van down by the river, you've heard about the tragedy that took place last night in Denver, Colorado. A young man, for reasons yet to be revealed, walked into a movie theater during the midnight premiere of The Dark Knight Rises and opened fire. At least twelve people lost their lives and over fifty were wounded. It is without a doubt, an unspeakable tragedy and I can only hope that the wounded recover, and the dead and their loved ones find peace. As for the suspected killer, we can only hope for justice to prevail.

Aside from that, I really hope that the media and people in certain areas of the political spectrum do not try and use this tragedy for their own ends. Too often, the media, politicians, and "experts" try to use these events to play the blame game. In the aftermath of the Columbine Massacre, video games (Doom, specifically), rock music (Marilyn Manson), amongst other things, were blamed for that tragedy. Unfortunately, we Americans don't like the kind of introspection and examination needed, and it's easier for us to just play the blame game than lay responsibility at the proper doorstep. Unfortunately, my hope is a forlorn one, as it's already begun.

*sigh* Easier to blame, than to examine.

You are likely to be eaten by a Grue

Ah, gotta love MC Frontalot.



Like your trusty towel, always remember to bring a torch.

New armor for Iron Man 3 unveiled at Comic-Con

And in the words of the immortal Zack Ryder: Are you serious, bro?

I'm hoping this will be one of those one-off armors, the product of too much booze and Tony thinking "I wonder if I can create a truly ugly armor? Also, I'm out of scotch. I love scotch. Scotchy, scotch scotch." On the other hand, it bears a resemblance to his Hydro Armor. Given that Iron Man 3 is based on Warren Ellis' Extremis story arc, this could be a pre-Extremis armor.

Picture via Topless Robot.

Childhood memories: PlayStation 1 and the TV set

Ah, yes, the PlayStation 1. She was the console that hammered the final nail into the cartridge format's coffin and lured me, like a siren, towards console gaming. I have fond memories of the PS1, from the day I got it, to the one summer that I left the console running for several days straight while I played Final Fantasy 7 because I didn't have a memory card. The PS1 wasn't the first console I ever played, that honor goes to an Atari 5200. I had played the Nintendo, SNES and the Sega Genesis before, but after boneheadedly trading away the latter, I had largely drifted away from console gaming, or really any kind of gaming for that matter. I don't recall what made me want a PlayStation, whenever I think about it, the thing that comes to mind is Final Fantasy 7. I remember seeing the commercial for it and drooling.




Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Metroid this was not! At any rate, my parents bought me one for Christmas, but didn't tell me.  Imagine my surprise when I woke up and my dad walked into my room carrying the box!

Now imagine my surprise when he went to hook the console up to my TV and discovered that the thing lacked RCA jacks. The TV wasn't even that old, really, I think it might have just lacked one of the jacks or maybe all three. It was a bummer that was mitigated by hooking the console to the TV in my parent's bedroom. I also lacked a memory card, because I wasn't aware that you needed one. They were a new thing, after all, and I had been out of the gaming loop. It also didn't help that the things cost like 24 bucks each at the time. The more immediate problem was having enough time to play it. Since the console was in my parent's room, I could only get my game on during the day, which wasn't helped by school. I remember more than once, I would playing a game and my dad would more or less kick me out so he could go to bed.

Eventually, the problem was solved one evening when my dad took me to buy a "new" television. If the parentheses weren't a giveaway, the TV wasn't brand new. At the time, my older brother was the manager of one of those rental stores (long since bought out by another company) and told my dad that they had a used set that they would sell him for about $90. I don't think they planned on putting it back out on the floor. I need to make a brief stop here and explain something to give this story some better context. We were not well off financially. I would say that my family had always been like lower-middle to middle-middle class. My dad at the time worked as a mechanic at a gas station/garage. I have no idea what he made per week, but it wasn't a lot and the majority of it went to bills and fulfilling our needs. My mom mostly stayed at home, looking after me and whatnot. At the time, I was getting monthly checks from the government because of a birth defect, and we used most of that to cover what my dad's paychecks didn't. One redeeming aspect of my dad's job, though, was that the owner gave out fairly decent bonuses at Christmas and so that was when we splurged on some luxuries.

With that in mind, my dad laying down $90 for a used TV (and however much for batteries for the remote control) was staggering to me and humbling. I remember telling my dad that he didn't have to buy it and then thanking him several times after he did. I didn't quite grasp the value of money back then, but I knew enough to know that that was a lot of money for us. Hell, I was over the Moon whenever my parents gave me a $20 for Christmas and my birthday and I was in sublime bliss whenever my mom gave me a $5 or, on rare occasions, a $10 to spend at the local arcade. A 5 can buy you a lot of tokens and a 10 can make you feel like Bill Gates when one token was equal to a quarter.

I kept both the TV and the PlayStation for many, many years and they were used often until the end. The former was finally replaced in 2009 by a nice little flatscreen, while the latter was supplanted by the PlayStation 2 and Xbox, before being given away.

Gone, but not forgotten.

Picture via Zombies Ate Their Way To My Heart. (NSFW)

Evolution of Batman

Click to embiggen.

Freaking awesome. Created by writer Blair Erickson, this infograph tracks the evolution of Batman and several other characters from their beginnings up to the modern day. I thought it a bit odd that he put the late great Pat Hingle (Commissioner Gordon) twice, but I guess Erickson didn't want to leave an odd gap in the picture.

Via Tor.com.

Of Assassins, their Creeds, and white dudes

So, as you've probably heard by now, there's going to be an Assassin's Creed movie, with Michael Fassbender both starring and co-producing. I've only ever played like half an hour of the first game, so I have no real investment in the film, but I have noticed quite a bit of consternation about Fassbender's role in the movie. Specifically, it's the fact that he'll be playing the lead and that's a problem because Altair, the protagonist of the first game was Middle Eastern. Michael Fassbender is Anglo-German. Considering Ubisoft was also behind the Prince of Persia movie - a movie starring Jake Gyllenhaal as a decidedly white Persian - people are obviously concerned about white washing in the movie's casting.

Now, the thing is, everyone's assuming that he's going to play Altair because they think the movie is going to be a straight-up adaptation of the first Assassin's Creed. However, I have some thoughts on that after the jump.

Every time Michael Fassbender smiles,
ovaries in a fifty mile radius are destroyed.

How do we know he's going to play Altair? He could play Desmond, Altair's descendent, whom the games all revolve around. If he does play an assassin, who's to say it will be Altair? Like I said, people are assuming that the movie will be a direct adaption of the first game, but I don't think many have considered the possibility that it might be based on the games, but with a wholly original plot. That makes more sense to me, because otherwise people will go into the theater basically knowing what's going to happen because they're either played Assassin's Creed or read the plot summary on Wikipedia or the Assassin's Creed Wiki.
The thing to keep in mind is that not all of Desmond's ancestors were Arab. Ezio was Italian and AC III's protagonist is half-British, half-Native American (which explains the tomahawk), so there's potentially room in there for Fassbender.

Pictures via the Assassin's Creed Wiki and Total Film.

Fighting evil by moonlight again next summer: New Sailor Moon series announced

While not a huge fan of the series myself, I will say yay! I did watch the show off and on when it aired on Toonami back in the day. The new series was commissioned in celebration of Sailor Moon's twentieth anniversary and appears to be a remake, or as they're calling it, a new adaption. Expect it Summer 2013.

h/t Pixelated Geek and Anime News Network.

Never stop being weird, Japan. Never stop.

Via HeroPress.

Things that exist: an Avengers porn parody

Not that terribly weird, actually. Porn parodies have become this big fad in the porn industry, with parodies (they label them as such to avoid being sued, I guess) of everything from the aforementioned Avengers to Star Trek (both TOS and TNG) and Star Wars. Hell, I was checking IMDB just now and discovered porn parodies of Psycho and Hollywood Squares. I imagine they rejiggered the shower scene in the former and I really can't think of how the latter would work.

At any rate, my discovery of the Avengers porn started on Tumblr. Last night, one of the people I follow on there reblogged a gif set of what I thought was a Spider-Man porn. Not to go into details, but he was having the relations with Ms. Marvel, an odd coupling for a Spider-Man movie of the pornographic variety. I did some googling and discovered that the scene actually came from an Avengers porn. I found the IMDB page for it, but noted something odd about the cast list: There's no Captain America. They have Iron Man, Thor, Hulk (actually, they went old school and have one guy playing the Hulk and another playing Bruce Banner), Hawkeye, Nick Fury, and Black Widow. Additionally, they put Ms. Marvel, Spidey, Scarlet Witch, She-Hulk, and Sharon Carter in it too. The last one's a bit odd, considering that Carter is Cap's girlfriend in the comics. Oh, and they kept Nick Fury black, so that's awesome.

Point of interest: The guy cast as Hawkeye is named Eric Masterson. For a short period of time in the 80s and 90s, Marvel replaced the original Thor with a guy named Eric Masterson, who eventually became his own superhero named Thunderstrike. I have no idea whether that's his real name or if he's just a nerd.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go look for that Hollywood Squares porn, because I just have to know how they managed to pull that off.

Location of Spider-Man's secret hideout revealed!

Huh, I guess Peter was bitten by a radioactive trapdoor spider.

That's C. C. Sabathia, by the way. I believe he's a pitcher for a hockeyball team, the Jersey Shore Yankees.

h/t Wil Wheaton.

These are the search keywords for this blog right now

Click to embiggen.

Seriously, guys? This is the milkshake that's bringing you all to the nerdy yard? :3

Zod bless Felicia Day's legs--er, I mean America.

But mostly Felicia Day's legs, because yowza.



Although, unlike a certain recently terminated video game writer, I have nothing but respect for Felicia Day and her contributions to geek and nerdom.

Check out these straight up honest game reviews

Professor Oak's rejected review: Who wants to play with my Poké Balls?

Clearly, they didn't come from a GameStop. No, these honest reviews come from a game store in Australia called JB Hi-Fi, which apparently hires college students and young people and let their employees write these simple reviews.

Mmm, champagne tears and caviar regrets.

JB Hi-Fi has a Tumblr with more pictures. It would be awesome if more stores had reviews like these.

h/t Bob All The Time.