I wrote a review of a Hellboy action figure for Michael Crawford’s toy review site. Here’s the link. My main motivation was to raise awareness of the animated films, because if Blood & Iron doesn’t sell well, there won’t be any more.
I wrote a review of a Hellboy action figure for Michael Crawford’s toy review site. Here’s the link. My main motivation was to raise awareness of the animated films, because if Blood & Iron doesn’t sell well, there won’t be any more.
Obviously I stayed home today. DG isn’t here. She didn’t come back from work last night. I didn’t think anything of it at first…sometimes she works late. But when she wasn’t here this morning I tried to call her lab, but the phone lines are jammed of course. I panicked for about an hour, thought about getting in my car, but one look outside…now I just feel kind of numb.
It feels sort of surreal, sitting here writing a blog entry with all that’s going on…and wondering how long anyone will even be able to read this. How long will the electricity stay on? How long can people like me hide in their apartments and hope this thing blows over?
I’ve been scared before—I was a wreck during September 11. I spent that day, and many days after it, watching the news constantly, surfing the Web for as much information as I could find. I remember how creepy it was to see those crazy second-by-second updates on CNN.com, the way CNN.com kept crashing. And now it’s happening again.
It kind of reminds me of The Stand. That novel scared the hell out of me. The idea of a superflu—it really wasn’t that far-fetched. Well, clearly. Not that this is a flu. The flu doesn’t make people…eat people.
The TV’s out except for WLVI 56, who are still broadcasting from their news station. I remember back when they used to have the Creature Double Feature in the ’80s. I wish they’d never canceled that…what the hell am I saying? I think I’m in shock.
Anyway, they had some fat bearded guy on, a scientist I guess, who said “every dead body that is not exterminated, becomes one of them. It gets up and kills. The people it kills get up and kill!” Thanks for the tip, fatty. Most of us already figured that out.
I guess it started a couple days ago, somewhere in Russia I heard. But it’s spread like wildfire, literally. Kind of funny, coming after that TB scare with that guy who ran off to Europe to get married. You’d think they would have been on high alert or something, or at least had this kind of thing on their minds. I mean, what the hell?!
God, there’s a bunch of them walking up Dighton right now. What I wouldn’t give for one of those assholes who always rips up the street in a pick-up. Mow those things down.
I might post again, if the power’s still on. And if they haven’t…I’m in a basement floor apartment, strong windows, strong doors. I can probably hold out for a while. But DG isn’t here. I want to go find her. I wonder how my family is doing.
I wonder where DG is.
The year was 1996. Summer 1996, to be more exact.
I was a young lad of seventeen, a single year of high school between me and freedom from the parental units. This was to be my final summer of Magic: the Gathering, the collectible card game I’d started playing two years earlier and my main hobby at the time. (I would spend most of the following summer playing Diablo on my brand-new PC.)
Like any high school kid, I had a summer job. I’d spent the previous summer working first as a bagger, then a cashier at the local supermarket, but decided not to return to that particular slice of occupational purgatory. Instead, I wrangled a position as a temp worker at Sensible Solutions, a small software-packaging company housed in the Plymouth industrial park. Most of what we did was fold CD-Rom packages and stuff them with CD-Roms and FAQ pamphlets—or as my friend John called them, “Fah-cues.” The particular software we were packaging for most of that summer was Juno, a free dial-up email service. I think at one point SenSol was actually listed on the packages as the HQ for Juno.
I had a few different jobs in high school and college, but none were as wonderfully bizarre and memorable as my brief stint at SenSol, as we called it. Forget The Office; SenSol was peopled by grotesques that would put a Sherwood Anderson novel novel to shame. A good number of high school friends also worked at SenSol that summer and well all had our own unique experiences with the bizarre people who worked there.
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I haven’t mentioned it on the site, but obviously I’ve got a new “What I’m Reading” section, where I link to articles and whatnot I come across (via my feeds in Google Reader).
I’m just curious whether anyone ever peruses those links. I definitely like the feature and I’m planning to keep it—just wondering if any of you regularly check out the links, or if my interests are too esoteric…
I’m a big fan of the novel, and I do wish it looked like the movie was adhering more closely to it, but it still might be an interesting film.
Here’s the trailer. Disappointment warning: they don’t actually show any monsters.
Well, I’ve gone two weeks without writing a videogame-related post. There’s a reason for that—about two weeks ago, I sort of lost interest in gaming. Burned out, I guess, after four or five months of hardcore videogame obsession. It’s happened to me before; I well remember how obsessively I played Diablo in summer 1997, only to stop abruptly in late August and then I was never able to enjoy the game again.
I think a lot of people go through phases like this. And if the right game came along, I’d probably get into it. As of right now, though, the only games I’ve been interested in have been Super Smash Brothers Brawl and Konami’s Hellboy.
Speaking of Hellboy, I finally watched the second animated flick, Blood & Iron, last week. While I enjoyed the first film, Sword of Storms, Iron is a definite improvement. Where Storms had Hellboy wandering around the world of Japanese folklore, the new film brings the big red lug back to his roots, having him battle vampires and werewolves in a haunted house. The story is loosely based on the legend of Elizabeth Bathory.
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The Christmas storyline continues—now in full Microsoft Paint color to make your eyes bleed!
Link to prevent inadvertent horrification (Warning: scary zombie cannibalism graphically depicted!)
Yeah…I got issues.
I’ve been chuckling at this picture all morning. (From Marvelous News.)
The unintentional humor factor is pretty high…the needs-more-fiber pose, the semi-nudity, the detailed ass-crack, the “splat” graphic behind his butt…and of course, the fact that he’s the Silver Surfer and he’s riding a motorcycle.
I hated toys like this when I was a kid. Even then I was concerned with what is today called “canon.” I always wanted the regular, everyday version of the character, not some lame Arctic Batman. My parents understood this and usually just asked me what I wanted, rather than buying things randomly. But if some unknowing aunt had given me something like this for my birthday, I can’t imagine how I would have “explained” it during play…maybe someone stole the Surfer’s board, and Reed Richards created this for him as a temporary replacement? But then, why would it have wheels? Ah, forget it.
I’d just like to wish my good cuz Ed of The Ed Zone a very happy birthday!
