The League of Extraordinary Bloggers: Halloween

So the theme this week is Halloween, that being said it's time to try something new, so with that in mind, Nerd Rage Against the machine presents- The Best and Worst of Halloween!


BEST TRICK OR TREAT CANDY!

The Lion Bar- Maybe it's the fact that finding this awesome British candy bar here in the states requires me to order on line or an 8 hour trip to St Louis, but damn they are the kind of candy that if I found in my Trick or Treat bag (or my daughters) I would indeed be in heaven. Chocolate, caramel wafer and rice crisps make this damned delectable, with only the much vaunted Reece's peanut butter cup taking a close second.

WORST TRICK OR TREAT CANDY-

The Root Beer Barrel-I am not kidding when I say I would rather get a toothbrush in my bag than these horrible tasting solid sugar lumps of doom. they taste more like the nastiest licorice I can imagine than they do any actual root beer I have ever had, and to be honest I enjoy a nice root beer. But I would imagine vinyl siding to taste better than these horrid lumps, at least the toothbrush would be useful. 

BEST VAMPIRE MOVIE-

Shadow of the Vampire- This film NAILS IT! it is a fictional retelling of the filming of FW Murnow's Nosferatu. with John Malcovitch as Murnow, and the ever creepy Willem Defoe as Max Schreck. Incredible performances the vampire is an actual monster, not just someone tarted up who moans on about a beast I am lest a beast I become bullshit. This is an incredible film, from the talent to the story to and to the setting. 

WORST VAMPIRE MOVIE-

Twilight (series)- Yes I realize that hating on twilight is more obvious than hating on the Star Wars Prequels but that won't stop me from doing it. I did try to sit through the first one, I went throught 4 years of film school, and watched a lot of dreck, so how bad could it be? Bad. It was less of a vampire film and more about a group of people with super powers that seemed to emulate the powers of vampires. The dead eyed stares of Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart were hardly any help here. The only plus is that Edward was smoother with the ladies than Anican Skywalker, but only by a little. 

BEST HORROR COMEDY MOVIE-

Evil Dead-2- This is a no brainer, take a horror script, add Bruce Campbell, and shoot the whole damn thing like a 3 stooges film on acid. The Result? This is why Bruce Campbell is a cult film hero, right here. a man who can deliver exact comic timing and still go insane enough to cut off his own hand with a chainsaw making it both creepy and funny at the same time. The sequel (Army of Darkness) Is also verymuch worth seeing. 

WORST HORROR COMEDY MOVIE- 

Scary Movie (series)- I sat through Scary Movie 2 with a friend of mine who thought I would like it because in his words I like "dumb comedy" you know like Monty Python, or the Venture Brothers. I sat through this 2 hour cinematic bowel movement stone faced. Not one scrap of celluloid inducing so much as a smile, and yes I was willing to give it a try. The jokes (if you can call them that) seem like the kind of crap high school kids would come up with for a pep rally. Mostly consisting of "remember this piece of obvious pop culture" gags using the most obvious toilet humor to play them to their conclusions. and no movie from the creators of has proven to be one iota better. I could fill this blog with my loathing for this piece of garbage but why bother? 

BEST FAMILY FILM FOR HALLOWEEN-

Hotel Transylvania- I know some of you out there are crying foul right about now. "what? Not Nightmare before Christmas?" "How dare you?" "Tim Burton's Masterpiece is a work of Genius!" Well, I disagree. Tim Burton is a highly derivative director who took 90% of his visual cues from Robert Weine. Don't believe me? Watch the Cabinet of Doctor Caligari, and compare the look of Burton's films. The architecture? Check, The characters? Check (doesn't Edward Scissorhands look just  like Cesare?) Yes it has some very catchy tunes but it's not the greatest film ever made. And I will admit this is also true of my choice, but as a father to a beautiful baby girl, it strikes a chord. The gags are cute, the film flows well and is written with adults in mind with many jokes, and the whole thing was directed by Gennedy Tartikofski (Dexter's Lab/ Samurai Jack) what's not to like? 

WORST FAMILY FILM FOR HALLOWEEN-

Elvira, Mistress of the Dark- O.K. Not a horrible film, but definitely a poor choice if you have small kids around. I'm Jus sayin'

MOST OVER RATED MONSTER- 

The Zombie- Look, I get it zombies are a great stand in for an overwhelming tide of humanity infecting what is pure in humanity. Romero's Night of the Living Dead could have been an analogy for  the communist threat. Now a day it could be a stand in for consumer culture or a culture to inwardly obsessed with the digital world to make a mark in the real one. But they are also a great monster because they have almost no sympathetic side in their purest form. It's not racist or evil to hate or want to riddle zombies with more lead than a Chinese toy factory. They are a survivalist's wet dream for an enemy. A real communist, may have a point or even be able to rationalize with you. But not Zombies they are solely here to make you one of them and eat your brains. but Aliens, Vampires, and Lycanthopes can all be sympathized with, even loved. This is why there are so many games and movies about zombies, kill em' no one will mind. 

MOST UNDER RATED MONSTER- 

Mankind- Lets be fair until we find real monsters, Man is the template for all of our made up ones. We have a history of being unwaveringly cruel, evil and vile. and this makes for some of the scariest stories. from the Shining, to Psycho, to even Tod Browning's freaks where the menagerie of deformed folk were not at all evil and the most twisted foul beasts in the film were the so called normal and beautiful people. In short we really can be the true face of evil. 

Now let's see what trick and treats the rest of the league has to offer! 
The Monster Cafe
Nerd Out With Me
Goodwill Hunting 4 Geeks
the 30ish Year old Boy
Team Hellions
Diary of a Dorkette
Cool and Collected

The League of Extrodinary Bloggers- Waddaya Want?

Thinking immediately about Babylon-5, I have to reply "Do not ask this question again!" but seriously, I don't do a ton of garage sales, mostly because i am disappointed in the ones I have gone to recently. However dreams chance and all, I would love to walk into a garage sale, or thrift shop and find this-

The play make SDF-1 playset, it was a cardboard monstrosity that spans 5' in length and designed to serve as a toybox as well as a massive anime themed playset. I had one but it was destroyed in the move of 1991, and honestly I think finding another one would be slightly harder than brokering peace in the middle east, and stopping the government shutdown simultaneously. This want is only exacerbated by paladium's release of Robotech RPG tactics, a miniatures game set in the Robotech world. This would be an amazing piece of terrain to use with the 1.5 inch mecha of that game. Imagine it, swarming with advancing Zentraedi battlepods, and the Veritechs desperately defending their adopted home. god it makes me want to cry.

But there is no point crying over spilled milk, or lost massive space battle cruisers. Of course there are other things I would happy to find as well, such as many of these beauties.

 Starcom was a line of toys by Coleco, maker of the Cabage patch kid, and of course the Coleco Vision. The line was more or less a group of slightly smaller than M.A.S.K. sized astronaut figures with very cool vehicles. Besides some amazing designs, including vehicles designed for modular deployment, many vehicles had movement actions using wind up motors to simulate slow openings or movements like a space vehicle, why no one before or since has employed this is a mystery. The Starmax bomber, one of the coolest vehicles in the line is pictured above, but there are quite a few very cool vehicles, they also sported metal panels and the figures had magnetic feet. This allowed them to look like they were doing space walks and the like, very cool. but also very overpriced on Ebay, so...

So that's my quick list. Here's what the rest of the league wants-

The Garage Sale of Awesome hunts the deadly NES (the most Dangerous game!) 
The Thirtyish year old boy pines about Star Wars figures
Jamie looks for Hannah Swanson books
The Nerd Cantina want's everything...
The Nerd Nook is in it for the nostalgia. 
The Nerd out of time is on the hunt for legos (and Snozzberries!)
Goodwill Hunting for Geeks, looks for a lot including Madballs 
Kal doesn't want to rebuild him despite having the technology. 
and
My Vintage Toybox is on the hunt for Shogun Warriors, Battle Beasts and Jem! 

League of Extrordinary bloggers: Pet Peeves

So with a Blog named "Nerd Rage against the Machine." Pet Peeves are pretty much my specialty, I rant. That's what I do. And that being said, it's what I want to rant about but here is my pet peeves, so with that in mind I decided to shake this up a bit and come up with 5 major pet Peeves, make this kind of a potpourri of things that piss me off.

5-Celebrities who use Celebrity instead of acting- This happens more often than not, one young actor or actress gets that really meaty role that people love, and then BOOM! that's what he or she is known for. Look at Cillian Murphy, who played the Scarecrow in Batman Begins. Before this he played a sympathetic crossdressing protagonist in the film Breakfast on Pluto. Without a shred of malice or sadism, Murphy played the role with aplomb, but then he did a little movie called Batman Begins. Now? He is the perfect person to play sadists, sociopaths and psychos. Red Eye, his first film after Batman, he was the psycho in the film. He was also the villain in the films In Time, and set up to be the villain in the next Tron film. Why does this bother me? a few reasons, firstly we give these actors a by to play characters that are essentially their schtick rather than growing and cultivating other performances. And worse, films cater to them not the other way around. Take George Clooney, I won't deny the guy is talented, but at the same time rather than him trying to become this noted character, the character was twisted to fit Clooney's style. The importance of what makes Batman an interesting character were scrapped for "we want a George Clooney kind of Batman." The Same can be said for Shaquille O'neil in the film Steel. The character of Steel could have made a decent film but, WE GOT SHAQ!!! Let's make jokes about his inability to make free throws, and ignore the connections to superman that the character had, because IT'S SHAQ!!! Don't believe me? Look at Stalone's Judge Dredd film, which was a vehicle for Stalone, it was a disaster. Meanwhile Dredd, starring Karl Urban who was a hardcore fan of the comic did an amazing job as the megacity lawman, and doctor McCoy, two very different characters both played by the same ACTOR brilliantly. This often effects comic movies where since it's  lot of effects it is a summer blockbuster, and we want some "star power" to draw people in. Why? is a comic that has become a huge phenomenon in one industry not enough reason to explore it in film? So yeah Pet Peeve.

4-Games Workshop- Just like Disney and Microsoft, Games Workshop started out from humble beginnings. A group of british gamers who wanted to import the dungeons and dragons phenomenon to the UK. Eventually branching into miniatures and their own games, such as Talisman, and Dungeonquest, but nothing turned them from a small company to a publicly traded corporation like Warhammer, and it's sister game Warhammer 40,000 rogue trader. Since about the 1990s GW has gone from the small group of dedicated gamers that ran their company in the 1980s to a company beholden to it's shareholders, who have at every turn dicked over fans and the industry at large. From near annual price hikes, to frivolous lawsuits that would make Apple blush with shame, GW has truly become the Microsoft of the industry. Not a trip to the game store goes by that I don't get to hear another grievance planted firmly on GW. They just axed their specialist games line leaving fans of any thing they make that isn't Warhammer, or Warhammer 40,000 or the Hobbit, out in the cold, sorry bloodbowl players. And yet they continue to play. I have heard gamers scream bloody murder, and yet with alternatives in the market what do they do? They continue to give money to and play the GW way. If we had this blind loyalty in the video game industry, Atari would still be the number one brand in video gaming followed closely by Mattel, and Coleco. Two game companies I have begun to really like Warlord, and Mantic are run by Ex GW developers and have made some amazing games and have customer service unparalleled customer friendly activities, and yet fans go GW, this would be like a Beatles fan  refusing to listen to anything John Lennon, or Paul MacCartney do post Beatles, but they will slavisly buy polygram records because they distributed the Beatles records so they must be good. I just don't freaking get it!

3- People who cannot use their goddamn turn signals!- Nothing pisses me off more than some jackass who cuts me off from the left without bothering to use his turn signal, then jumps into the right turn lane and signals he is turning right. Not when it actually would have helped be a safe driver, but once you are in the goddamn THEN you let the world know that not only are you in a lane that only turns right, but you are signaling that you are turning right. There is a special place in hell for people like this. Stuck in a car with a repeating loop of Michael Bolton's greatest hits in a car with a top speed of 15 mph locked in for all eternity while other drivers cut you off every chance they get.  

2- Gamers (as in I own an X-box, so I am such the gamer)- have been a "gamer" since 1984, with red box D&D, Traveller, Champions, etc, and when I caught 50 shades of crap (even being accused of Satan worship, by a classmate who had a hard time wrapping her head around the idea that if I am an atheist, I by definition cannot worship, Satan or otherwise! Now being a hardcore gamer type means you play call of duty, or Halo on your Xbox. wow you guys really paid your dues. I earned the title of gamer, in marathon sessions of Cyberpunk, and Warhammer building terrain, and writing adventures, now you just pick up a wireless controller and play an "RPG" (I am sorry Final Fantasy VII is NOT AN RPG GODDAMN IT! It's just an adventure game with a shitty combat engine!!) damn kids get off my lawn!

1- The Fact that this dung heap is worth millions- Yeah the continued existence of the Australian douchebag who's company killed Firefly, the Tick, The Lone Gunmen, and countless others, and who pumped so much poison into our political discourse in this country is not only still around but worth
millions. The fact that Birthers bitch about our president claiming he's a foreigner take their marching orders from an actual foreigner would be funny if it wasn't so goddamn tragic. between Fox News and Fox screwing around with anything they touch that has an ounce of talent or quality (but you damn well better believe if it's some trash TV that appeals to the lowest common denominator this man will promote the hell out of it!) Suck it Rupert!

Now that I got that of my chest, let's see what pisses off the rest of the league.

Nerd Cantina
Cavalcade of Awesome (So right about the shopping carts!)
GI Jigsaw
Di's treasures
Diary of a Dorkette ( I remember the same problem with the Teen Titans Line (only got half a titan tower DAMN THEM!!))

Feelin' Blue...

So the league wants the blues, huh? Well you're gonna get the blues!!!

You can't go wrong with Jake and Elwood Blues, after all they are on a mission from god!

Blueprints from the Ogre Cybertank, one of the most badass land vehicles ever made!

Daft Punk, One more time.

My favorite Decepticon,

Lady action, blue shirt, union jack gams like you wouldn't believe what's not to like.

Ted Kord, Blue Beetle, Represent!

More Blueprints, this time Starships. 

The Minbari Shar-Lin Cruiser, big, blue and badass!

As is it's smaller battlecraft, the whitestar!

and Bluestreak, for no real reason.

Ah Nemi, You pick me up when I am feeling blue..

Now, Let's see what the rest of the league is up to...

The Monster Cafe is feeling Blue

Cal seems a bit Asure  but damn that is one nice speed racer cosplay!

League of Exrordinary Bloggers: Hello, My name is...

So with being back in the saddle it's time to jump back into the league, and with out much time to spare this week's Subject is in short- Who am I?

I'm Batman!

Just kidding I had to say it, of course no one has ever seen me in the same room as batman so...

Seriously though, I'm Jamie Herbert, I was born in Odessa Texas in  May of 1972, to Jerry and Linda Herbert. The younger of 2 boys, my father was in the oil business as a roughneck and thus we moved all over the world, From Thailand, to Norway, to Iran, To Spain, to Scotland, and most alien of all Louisiana.

In fact, we left Iran right before all the revolutions happened, I still remember the Shah's face adorning huge paintings in local shops, and on the test pattern of our TV, where my brother would anxiously wait for his portrait to fade so we could watch Tom and Jerry!

When We left we came home to New London Iowa (where My Grandpa and Grandma lives, and more or less the placed lived when in the USA. also where I started going to school. after coming back from Iran, we saw a movie in the drive in that many think of as the touchstone of our generation,

I hated it. Hey, I was 5 years old and jet lagged, i fell asleep through most of it. The second time I watched it however I was hooked. It was awesome, I was obsessed and it was my life, as my other obsessions, The Bionic Man, Megos, Star Trek and of course Superheroes...

I really learned to lessons from moving and being the perennial new kid, First is that everyone is different. For example, when we lived in Scotland I watched plenty of british TV, and not just the classic like Monty Python, but stuff like Blue Peter, The Goodies, Educating Marmalade, and Black Adder. I still recall watching the Doctor Who Episode series "The Five Doctors" When it originally aired and also became a who fan a certain Galifreyan traveler. You know, you never do forget your first doctor. Beyond that I realized that people hate things they don't understand I took flack in iowa for calling teachers Ma'am or Sir, but in Louisiana you did this or got hit, it becomes habbit. When I loved in Scotland we learned about factor trees. and on a math test i took the month after in Louisiana, I got shit for cheating on a quiz where I was showing my work. My brother coped by trying harder to fit in, but not me. I prettymuch became increasingly of the opinion that if you think I am weird or not cool for not following the herd, then screw you, I'm fine with being an iconoclast. This is also probably the reason I hate it when something I love becomes main stream enough that the kind of people who ridiculed me for liking it are now somehow claiming to be the biggest fans of this!

One other thing that i picked up in the UK was Dungeons and Dragons. it was big in the American School in Aberdeen where I went, and My brother had some interest after we had watched Pat Robertson declare it satanic on the 700 club when we were leaving for Scotland the 2nd time.  While my brother was the more interested into getting into it originally, I became the one who fell way deeper for it. The same thing happened with Legos, my mom bought them for Lonnie originally but he showed very little interest, and me, I became a guy who still plays with legos as an adult. Same goes for gaming. He bought the starting games but then When I played, I never looked back I went from D&D to Gamma World, Top Secret, Traveller, Champions, and eventually into miniatures wargaming. Starting with Warhammer, I still get a kick out of building, painting modelling and of course playing, among my current favorites are Bolt Action, Maurice, Infinity, and Kings of War.

Once puberty set in I was like any other male, obsessed with the opposite gender, funny enough, despite the Sterotype of Star Trek fans being all virgins with no chance of getting laid in a women's prison, I actually owe quite a bit of my Sex life to Star Trek. I met my first serious girlfriend at a costume party where I went in a full TNG science officer uniform, I lost my virginity explaining the TNG episode "the Inner Light" and my future wife and mother of my children I had met when I made up the excuse that I was asked to look at the Star Trek Pinball machine at the arcade I worked at to get a glimpse of the new girl. She was pretty hot, and while she seemed uninterested that day the next we had to work together and it was a different story, we have been together ever since, and have our first daughter (Arya Lucia Herbert), and we have as a family been to trekfest, as Captain Kirk's birthplace is about an hour south of us.

So that's me a geek, an Iconoclast, a gamer (actual gamer, not "I play xbox so I am such the gamer" Gamer but real, spent weeks working on modules, painting armies kind, and a husband and parent. and when I am not doing that I Nerd Rage, but you guys already know about that...

So let's look at a few more. SECRET ORIGINS OF THE LEAGUE OF EXTRODINARY BLOGGERS!!!

Monster Cafe
Jathniel
The Goodwill Geek
Geekshow Ink
the Holidaze
Erik Johnson
Pop Rewind
The Trashman

League of Extraordinary Bloggers: The Ultimate Arcade!

Oh, I have got this. I have Sooooo got this. In fact I have already started work on this (much to my Wife's chagrin!) About 3 years ago, I had some extra cash our new house and some time off coming up so I bought my first piece from ebay and had to drive to St. Louis to pick it up. Gave my wife a chance to visit the St. Louis Zoo, so it all worked out. My Neo Geo MVS. I chose this for a first arcade machine for one reason. If I never get another machine, it is able to change games by swaping out cartridges like a home console meaning that owning only one machine does not mean I am both incredible at and totally sick of Pac Man, or Frogger, or Street Fighter II.

This was it when I brought it home with a copy of Samurai Showdown II in the slot. I have since put in a 179 in one cart including all of the Samurai Showdown series, all the Metal Slug games, as well as Capcom Vs SNK, most of the King of Fighters games and a few more essoteric games like Captain Tomaday, Matrimelee, Far East of Eden, and even Bomberman. Not bad for $450.00. If You don't believe me just listen to Keith Apicary , he makes a decent case for it's awesomeness.

Here is a pic of me and my kid with my Neo Geo, 4 bright buttons and all

My next piece I am going to build into my Garage, I have a 2 car, and I think that while this is not a commercial arcade game installing it would be something I would do if I had the unlimited resources to build my own mega arcade.

This is a networked Live action party game using 6 pc's to simulate a bridge operation ala Star Trek, this video shows it off better than I can explain it and it's just damn cool!

I have 2 spare PCs and a university surplus store about 1/2 hour from my door, This will be one of those slow builds If I can get it up and running. My plan is to take over the garage with a customized bridge panels and use a projector to put up the main screen. I just need to reinstall XP media center on the desktop in my basement, the requirements for the game are decently low. Looks slick No?

As for the next thing I would put on the list, it is something no arcade worth it's salt would be without. A pinball Machine!

Unless you are like 12 years old, any trip to an arcade probably included one of these. And no matter how much they increase the processing power, polygons and gigaflops, you can't simulate the sheer joy of seeing that silver ball against the laquered playfield flying up ramps and hitting the flippers. Truly magical and one thing I want for my own.

Now from here on we get into the if money were no object items.  The first is Galaxy Force II by Sega, it was a game I only got to play a few times but it felt just like piloting a goddamn starfighter in a way Star Wars Arcade, and it's 2003 revamp never could. Thanks to the hydraulic lifts moving the cabin around like a flight sim and the amazing controls, this one would have to go in my dream collection.

Next the Retro Geek in me has to go for this one Computer Space one of the first Arcade machines developed, it made an appearance in Soylent Green, the classic look of this one and a Pong would be a perfect museum piece to show just how far video games have come.

Next I would like to get some Japanese games some of the oddball ones such as Sonic Fighter, and Parodius just because they have some fun and wacky designs!

As for the rest of the games, (PacMan, Donkey Kong, Q-Bert, Frogger, Gauntlet, and Spy Hunter etc. I would probably be a bit of a philistine and get a Mame Arcade cabinet, just to save on electricity, and space. while yeah if I had space I would certainly have a warehouse with classics, rarities and big names but the realist in me knows this will be easier and cheaper in the long run!

So what about the rest of the league? Let's see what they have going on!
Cold Slither Podcast
Branded in the 80s
Cavalcade of Awesomeness.
The Nerd Nook 
Cal's Canadian Cave of Cool