My friend John of PulpLit pointed me to this article on Slate, “Mac Attack: Apple’s mean-spirited new ad campaign”, which basically rehashes the same arguments I made in my blog post a month ago.
Good to know the monolithic media catches up eventually…
Recently a Doritos ad has been running that features footage from the 1998 American Godzilla film. The first time I saw it, I had to ask: WTF mates?
GINO stands for Godzilla-In-Name-Only—the derogatory nickname given to the Americanized Godzilla by fans of the Japanese version who loathed the American abomination (such as me). The film did well at the box office but was a critical bomb, reviled by most Godzilla fans, and was more or less forgotten about except by those who follow the careers of Matthew Broderick or Jean Reno.
So what is he doing in a Doritos commercial eight years after his instantly-forgettable debut? All I can think is that whoever owns the film footage was looking for a way to build some equity and Doritos bit. I hope this doesn’t become a trend…I don’t need to see the aliens from Independence Day hawking burgers, or the Predator shilling for Nabisco.
On the advice of Sean, I’ve changed a few things about the commenting system. When you click to add a comment, you’re now sent to the comments section of the individual archive page, rather than getting a pop-up window.
Also, I’ve added a “Recent Comments” section to the sidebar on the main page, and a Last 100 Comments page (also available in a link below the Recent Comments).
There does seem to be an issue with the browser remembering previous login information, but I’m not sure where it’s occurring. I’m working on that. Anyway, if you have any problems, just let me know. And if you like the new format, let me know that too. Feedback is always appreciated.
Ed’s daughter Aria turns one today. I just want to wish Aria a very happy birthday! May you recieve lots of toys and goodies, and remember, stay away from the dog food—it’s not for people. I had to learn that the hard way.
I don’t watch Lost, but mostly because I know I would probably become obsessed with it and I have enough obsessions in my life. But I was amused to see that ball (as in base) enthusiast Todd McFarlane is producing Lost “action” figures. The first wave of statu–I mean, figures will feature Merry from Lord of the Rings sitting on a pipe.
Now, I’ll grant Todd his due respect for revolutionizing the toy industry and raising the bar for sculpting through the roof. But I just don’t see the appeal of this sort of thing. If a figure has at least a little articulation, then for me, it crosses the line from mere collectible to something with some use value, something that can inspire the imagination a bit. But that’s another blog post…
Turns out I did manage to become one of the finalists for the Google Da Vinci Code Quest. DG and I received the prop cryptex yesterday. The password for the cryptex is printed right on the packaging—”GRAIL”—but DG was highly amused to discover that the prop was so simple, you only need to line up the last two letters to open the thing.
There’s one more part to the game—a timed trial of five puzzles. I imagine whoever wins will either be a games genius or have enlisted the help of her various puzzle-expert friends, but DG and I plan to give it a go anyway.
As most of my readers probably know, I collect action figures. Recently I’ve been after the Hulk vs. Leader two-pack from Toy Biz. There have been a few Hulk figures over the years, but not many compare to this beauty. Or beast, as it were.
Hulk is even getting an Abomination to fight. The (store) hunt is on.
Well, I just finished the Da Vinci Code Quest on Google. DG and I have been doing it for over a month, but I had to be ready for the last puzzle, because the first 10,000 people to solve it get a free cryptex prop. It’s actually another part of the game, but we care less about that than just getting the prop.
Anyway, for the last puzzle you had to watch a movie on Google Video and then answer some DVC-related questions. I got through the whole thing, including filling out the address form in the end, in about sixty seconds. Hopefully it was enough–I’m not sure when they’ll let us know if we won. Either way, it was a fun little pastime for a few weeks.
After more than a year since the initial announcement, Konami has finally released some screenshots and a cinematic trailer for their upcoming Hellboy videogame.
The overall response from fandom seems to be “meh,” but I’m willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. The fighting system sounds interesting. A lot of complaints seem to be about the graphics, but to be honest, while I do have aesthetic appreciation for nice graphics, I’ll take great gameplay over pretty pictures any day. Kind of like how I prefer a decent amount of articulation on my action figures, rather than those plastic statues McFarlane Toys puts out these days.
I also watched the Halo 3 trailer–nice graphics, not much idea what’s going on, but I’m sure it’ll be an awesome game. An Xbox 360 will probably be the only thing on my Christmas wishlist this year.
I admit it, I have both a very high and very low sense of humor. I can laugh at a joke about Churchill and a “barf-o-rama” on Family Guy. I won’t apologize for that; it’s the way I am.
Thus, I link you to this. The panels are from a real comic book from the 1950s—a more innocent time, when certain words had a different meaning than they do today.
