Anyone out there?

Um, hello? Anyone? I have a website! With brand new stuff, even! Someone maybe want to take a look around? Perhaps even tell me that you were here? Geez. I know it's only been a day, but I've gotten such an underwhelming response to what I thought was a huge update. And by underwhelming I mean none. Aside from some possitive feedback about the Casey Jones artwork that I posted the link to on some boards I visit, I've gotten squat. Come on, where are my loyal followers?

Anyhow, now that Anime North is over (some good coverage at Lelola, by the way), it guess that means it's time to start thinking about the next Canadian National Expo. And for the first time in a few years, they've actually got me excited about this show.

Patrick Stewart is going to be there. That's a pretty big deal.

My good pal Scott McNeil will be there again.

And this just in...

Making a rare convention appearance will be Peter Larid, Jim Lawson, Eric Talbot and Michael Dooney, the crew behind Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles at Mirage Studios! This info comes from the official TMNT website. Holy cow, this is HUGE news. They don't go to very many conventions. I've been waiting over half my life to meet these guys. I have to bring a whole pile of stuff to get signed and buy some sketches while I'm there! This rocks.

So, yeah, this looks like it'll be a great show. I'm actually looking forward to it now, instead of just going because it's what I always do.

Sayonara.

New stuff and lots of it.

Well.. on Friday I said that I was going to update tomorrow, and as I write this I'm about two hours into Sunday... but it's still Saturday out on the west coast so I guess I'm still technically accurate in a sense... bah, whatever. I took a nap when I got home from work. Is that so bad?

Anyway, yeah, new stuff. Go look and listen and read and all that. Post here when you're done.

By the way, make sure you post in my thread for world domination! I want to be President of the World, and I'm listening to the people! Tell me your concerns, bring up the issues that matter to you, and ask me any questions about my campaign to become world president, and with the material gathered from this thread I'll write a funny new article. Give that thread a read to see the sort of thing I'm talking about.

By the way, Battle of the Planets rules.

Sayonara.

It's about time for a change.

I've been spending all week working on updates for this website. I had no idea it would take so long. Guess Anime North was a lot more tiring than I thought it was. No matter, I still chug along as best as I can.

Well, it is now Friday. I am updating tomorrow. BE READY!

Everyone needs to go watch the legendary Bruce Campbell starring as the King of Rock and Roll in Bubba Ho-Tep, the weirdest and craziest film this side of Mud Creek Texas! It's available now on DVD and totally worth checking out if your tastes in film go well outside the mainstream. I bought a copy this week and I'm sure it'll be taking more than a few spins in the ol' DVD player over the course of its life.

Sayonara.

Back from Anime North.

I have now returned.

It was a great convention. I'm very tired right now, so you'll have to wait for further details. Needless to say, there will of course be a convention report, however it won't be in the next update (which should be ready this week, so stay tuned), but rather the update following that.

Thanks to everyone who I talked to while I was there. It's you people that make these conventions worth going to.

Sayonara.

Anime North stuff.

Ok folks, here's the scoop. I will be at Anime North on all 3 days. I have very little money to spend, so I don't know how much time I'll be spending in the dealer room. Hardly any if I know what's good for me.

On Friday at 5:00 PM I will be sitting in as a speaker on the Transformers Panel in Panel Room 3. Where the hell is Panel Room 3? I don't know, but I'll be there! This is not the best time for the panel, but this is the hand that I've been dealt, so we'll have to make due. If you're around, come on by and talk to the Ninja about your favorite robots in disguise! Autobots, Decepticons, Maximals, Predacons, and Vehicons are all welcome! Bring your little Minicons too! This is the only panel I'll be speaking at this year.

I'd also like to go to the Voiceover Workshops by Performers Media Lab, Anime Improv, Otaku Unite, and the masquerade. I don't know if that'll all work out, but I'll try to be there. Here's the list of events if you want to take a look.

I'm hoping to update the site before the convention. I guess that means tomorrow.... but we'll see how that works out!

Hope to see you at the convention! If you find me, come and say hi!

Sayonara.

Where did this week go?

Seriously, where did it go? What the hell happened to make it Monday again already?

It seems like Blogger has added several new features and changed their design quite a bit. They added what they called a long requested feature: comments. So people reading the blog could post their thoughts. It's too bad that they made this feature completely SUCK! I spend a whole day trying to get it to work, and the result was totally not worth the effort. You have to go through a form on their website with their beige design to add a comment. There isn't even an option for people to put their name, unless, of course, they happen to already be a member of Blogger. Lame. I sent them a complaint and didn't hear anything back. Typical. LiveJournal has all of that kind of stuff and it works rather well for those users, but I've got almost a year's worth of posts here so I'm stuck with Blogger. Ah well, there's always the message board. I actually do have LiveJournal account but I've yet to use it for anything special.

What has been keeping me busy is that I've got a new Hard Drive. I've been working with only 27 gigs for the past few years, and now I've got 120 gigs to work with. So I replaced the small one with the big one. A simple task on it's own, but I wanted to reinstall everything rather than just copy, and that took a long time to get all my settings back the way I wanted. When I thought I was done, I formatted the smaller drive to eventually go into another computer that will not belong to me. But I wasn't done! Forgot to backup my digital photos! Felt like an idiot after that. Some recovery software got most of them back, no not much harm done there. Things seem to be working smoothly now and I hope I can update soon.

I'll be posting here again soon in regard to Anime North information, so all of you fellow Toronto convention monkeys know what I'll be up to this weekend.

Sayonara.

Does Whatever a Spider Can!

This weekend I was in the great state of Michigan. Was there to see family and so on, stuff that you'd probably not find very interesting. But I was able to make a trip out to Target to search for toys, which is a rare treat since that store does not have a presence in Canada. I left the store with this:



Amazing Spider-man!

This is no mere action figure. This guy is 18 inches tall, and has 67 points of articulation. He's jointed right down to each individual knuckle. You can put this guy into some incredible Spidey poses. And he's BIG. Even bigger than Unicron! See for yourself!



Ha ha, the Chaos Bringer looks like a chubby little child next to Spidey!

But I didn't just buy him for the coolness factor alone. I think that this will make a great model to draw from in regards to poses and some anatomy.

Plus, he's freakin' Spider-man! You can't beat that. Now they just need to make a Hulk figure in scale with Spidey here. Imagine the size of THAT!

Sayonara.

Van Helsing.

Just got back from seeing the Super Bowl of monster movies.

There has been a lot of discussion about this movie on the message board for some time now. Please post your thoughts on the film there.

Sayonara.

Supreme Gorilla and other thoughts.

There's a big sale at Toys R Us this week. I took it this opportunity to pick up a Transformer that I'd been eyeing for a long time, but had yet to buy due to the price. But the price was knocked down almost in half, so I finally decided that the time was right to get the exclusive Air Attack Optimus Primal. He was a toy originally set for release under the Beast Machines line, but was cancelled and actually saw the light of day due to fan demand under Robots in Disguise packaging. He's mostly accurate to his animated appearance (and I know all about that), very possable, massive in size, and actually has the voice of Gary Chalk. He says "The Seeds of the Future Lie Buried in the Past!", but he says it in such a way as if he's very frustrated that I didn't learn this in school. He also makes several other sound effects, and is probably the noisiest Transformer they've ever made. The best part, though, is that the box says that he transforms into a "Supreme Gorilla". Not just any gorilla, but a Supreme one! That's freakin' awesome. He's a big bad monkey. Don't mess with him.

Recent anime that I've been watching includes the following:

Shin Getter Robo 2004: Whoa, this came out of nowhere! I'm a big fan of Getter Robo and I had no idea that a new Getter show was on the way, but there it is. This series is unrelated to both the original 70's Getter Robo and the 90's Shin Getter Robo, but rather seems to be a new version of the story using the original Getter design as the prototype robot and the Shin Getter as the finished product. It has great animation, it's very dark and a bit mysterious, and best of all, it's violent as sin. The blood just flows like water in this show.

Tetsujin 28 Gou: WOW. Another remake of a classic anime, this one being a new version of the show known in English as Gigantor. Much like the new Astro Boy series, this show has some incredible high tech animation, but it's still very grounded in the tradition of the original. The look and feel of the characters is very retro. Even the theme song is the same. It seems to be quite epic and has several World War II references. It's a surprisingly refreshing show. The really unfortunate thing is that the original creator of Tetsujin 28 just recently passed away in a fire just as his creation was being revitalized.

Sensei no Ojikan: Very strange show about a class of weird students taught by a woman who looks like a 10 year old girl. The style of this show uses a lot of visual sound effects and random Japanese writings that appear out of nowhere. I'm not quite sure why I've been watching it, but it's an interesting, albeit bizarre take on Japanese school life.

Megas XLR: Ok, this isn't really an anime, it's actually a Cartoon Network original series, but it has a lot in common with anime. It's about this guy who finds a robot from the future in a junk yard and customizes it in crazy ways, similar to how some people have tricked-out cars. Then aliens go back in time to get it back and the chaos ensues. It's a very funny, crazy, but clever show that parodies things like anime, Transformers, and video games, so people who are into this stuff are going to get a big kick out of it. It has yet to air in Canada, but I'm sure it will eventually.

That is all. Time to play with my monkey.

Sayonara.

Why must I be forced to deal with this nonsense?

You know, sometimes I just don't understand people. In fact, make that most of the time.

Case in point: Recent troublemakers on the message board. Somebody, for some reason that I am not privy to, has a problem with a member of the message board. So this person has decided to join the board in an effort to spread some of his idiotic brand of havoc.

Attempts have been made to treat this itchy Internet inflammation. But whenever I put a stop to it, a new account is made and I have to do it again. I have locked no less than 3 separate accounts in the past few days. In fact, I doubt that many of the board users realize that there's a problem, because I've been able to take care of it before it really gets off the ground. And yet the stream of stupidity just keeps roaring along.

I don't have time for this. It needs to stop. Now.

Look here, son, if you happen to be reading this. I don't know who you are, nor do I care. I don't know you, I've never met you, and I don't care about you. I don't know what the issue is that you have with a member of my board, and I don't care about that either. Just keep it the hell off of my website. I'm not a part of this ridiculous feud of yours, and so there is no reason at all to bring it to my message board. I have warned you about this via e-mail, and I made myself very clear. But you keep signing up for new accounts, and I keep locking them. You WILL stop now.

Can't this jackass take a hint? Is he really that stupid? Hey, moron, let me spell it out for you one more time: DON'T COME BACK! YOU'RE NOT WELCOME HERE!

I don't know what do with this punk. Challenge him to a final showdown or something? I don't want to deal with this anymore. It's an inane waste of my time. This is just a never ending loop of incompetence, and I'm going to end it though any means necessary.

New members are always welcomed! New posts and topics are always welcomed! Idiots are not! You all can help make the message board a better place simply by posting, be it something new or a reply to an existing topic. It would make it all worthwhile for me if the board were to flourish like that.

But stupid people signing up to board just to bother someone else, and then constantly returning even though it's been made painfully clear that they're not wanted... that, I don't need. And anyone who acts like that anyway WILL be punished in a completely ruthless, unfair, and bias manner.

Sayonara.