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Month: October 2008

Twitter Updates for 2008-10-08

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5 Toys you would have killed for in the 80's

5.  The Sword of Omens

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“Thunder, Thunder, Thundercats Hoooooooo!”  I actually found one of these just laying in some bushes one day.  It was the day of a party at my Grandmother’s house and my friend Stuart and I found this along with some other awesome toys just sort of stashed in some bushes.  We spent an hour or so clashing with the sword and guns and pretending we were the Thundercats, sight beyond sight and all that.  I was Panthro, by the way.  My little sister, Mumm-Ra of course.

It wasn’t long before we were beset upon by the Mutant kids who had stashed these toys in the bushes in some form of extra Chromosome safekeeping.  After some stone throwing and G-Rated cursing, we were forced to give back “MOST” of the toys.  As far as I know, Stuart can still summon the Thundercats when he needs them.  “Sight Beyond Sight” indeed.

The Thundercats were a cultural watershed for the Under 12 Furry set, anthropomorphic Cats and supernatural monsters are always a great draw.  Especially if they have both Tanks and Swords.  Not to mention hoverboards, nunchucks and a cat/rat thing that has an easily imitatable vocal tic, snarf.

The Sword of Omens toy itself was not anything special, certainly no better construction than any other toy sword, but it had the Added Bonus feature of the Eye of Thundara, something your “Flash Sword” or “Pirate Sabre” simply did not have.  It could break  just as easily, but you could look through the hilt and claim to see the approach of your enemies for as far as 3 blocks away, if you were on an open field or a long straight street.

4. Optimus Prime

Generation One Optimus Prime ReIssue
Generation One Optimus Prime ReIssue

Leader of the AutoBots, Easy to transform, comes with a trailer that contains a “repair droid” and a car with human sized seats for some reason.  You fold the head and fists into the chest, there is no “Prime Matrix” in there in the G1 version.  Optimus Prime was also the only one of the first wave that really looked great in both his “Robot” and “Vehicle” forms. He was heavy and made with a bunch of die-cast metal, so parents could feel like they had value for their money when it came out of the box.

I had read the initial issues of Transformers as a British comic (Large format, newsprint styled comics) and it contained a bit more about the Transformers and some statistical information about the ‘Bots and what they could do,  I don’t think there was a toy that I wanted more the year that Optimus Came out.   I may have promised the soul of my little sister to Satan that year, who knew that stuff worked?

The big day came, I put the stickers on incorrectly and Optimus Prime spent the next few years fighting Gi-Joes and At-Ats.  When I sold him, it was kind of bittersweet, I’ve even purchased the reissue and sold that too.

How’s that servitude to Satan working out Kerry?

3.  The AT AT Imperial Walker

The AT AT Imperial Walker
The AT AT Imperial Walker

When you saw these walking Tank/Troop carriers stalking towards the Rebels in “Empire” you probably wet yourself with glee, I mean, there was already a “Death Star” toy, why not an AT AT. It’s a lethal Robot Dog with (on the original toy) moving light-up lasers and a head you could control like a puppet. Never mind the fact that it could hold so many figures.

I had one of these, no murder required.  I think I got it for my Birthday the same year I got Optimus Prime.  I remember that it came in one of those semi-generic white boxes from Sears.  I eventually traded it for Dolza and 12 dollars cash.

Before I let it go to the crazy kid down the street, who promptly tossed it down a flight of stairs (which his mom, dad and brother told me about, then blamed me for giving it to him) it used to stalk around my bedroom, mopping up hordes of Cobra Troops and stomping on Go Bots.

2. Voltron

Voltron, Defender of the Universe
Voltron, Defender of the Universe

The 5 lions Voltron, as opposed to the Vehicles Voltron was a prized toy. It was 5 awesome robot lions that turned into an even more awesome sword wielding robot. It had it’s own cartoon and catchy music. The “small” toy even had friction wheels on the lions so that could “soar” across the linoleum in your kitchen.

I never knew a single person who had all five of the full-size Voltron Lions.  I had a bunch of the figures and Ro-Beasts, but only the “small” voltron robot.  It was die cast and pretty much the heaviest toy tobot I even owned, save the japanese ones I snagged here and there (and Unicron, of course).

1. Unicron

Toys @ Work

When the Transformers Movie came out, I think everyone thought that the Unicron Toy would be out “soon” it migt be some kind “Figure” instead of a robot, but surely it wouldn’t be 20 years until we saw it, right?

I think only Omega Supreme was larger than Unicron in the end.  Unicron is one of the Transformers that looked SO good in his robot form I NEVER transformed it back into a planet after the first time.  Why bother, Unicron stood on my desk and looked menacing, almost fully posable and with articulated fingers, Unicron was literally the greatest Tranformer ever.

It’s too bad the Unicron Toy came out 20 years way too late,  I might not have sold him when I moved back to Canada.

Honorable Mentions:

Centurions aka (More Toys than you can buy):  Centurions might have been the greatest toys ever if it wasn’t for their sheer number and cost.

Robotech/Macross Toys: Transforming Robot Jets, massive alien battle pods, miniature SDF1.  Silly stuff.

Laser Tag / Photon: I was a photon kid, they had a better fictional universe, was there ever a photon cartoon?

Twitter Updates for 2008-10-07

  • @templesmith Yah, Venture Brothers is pretty much awesome. Season 2 was the best thus far imho, but Season 1 & 3 were great too! in reply to templesmith #
  • Dear Popstar, whom I have previously enjoyed the music of, your new music is teh suck. Find better producers, quick! #
  • “teh Suck” is an intentional Malapropism borne from the Internet, like pwn or LoL. #
  • @DrCrypt Well, R U HAPPi? LoL in reply to DrCrypt #
  • I’ve spent some of this morning writing about myself. I have written three pages of mostly single spaced text. I think that may be enough #
  • I still remember when you cried at the Jay’s game and said you lost your money, we all gave you 10 bucks each, you ended up with over $100! #
  • Out of Space – Do you remember this one? #
  • @happyguy wordpress.com popular posts. in reply to happyguy #
  • Bobby Lee May – three names and angry, he doesn’t drive a camaro does he? #
  • @seanbonner The sad thing is some of those things that are tacked on are awesome and beneficial to the populous as a whole, just bad timing. in reply to seanbonner #
  • Appointment at 2Pm across town, gotta go soon #
  • Back from appointment, everything appears alright. #
  • Sure Fire way to make a movie good; cast William Fichtner in it. Note I said “Good” you have to add Leland Orser to make it Awesome. #
  • @RevNathan MC Chris was in town at the Transformers premiere the night Ben and I went, we passed him and his group and it was NEEEERRRDS! in reply to RevNathan #
  • @somerled Waiting for the housing market to crash to the floor before looking into a house for my family. in reply to somerled #
  • Quick Block @tanje91 <- Spammeroooo #
  • Ground Beef, Mashed potatoes, peas, carrots = hearty dinner. #
  • I didn’t unpack my laptop after getting back from my appointment and now it seems silly to even think about it (4 minutes to go) #

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Twitter Updates for 2008-10-06

  • I can’t type in a cogent fashion this morning. Can someone please translate my thoughts into text for me? #
  • Any negative association is going to be considered REAL by the opposite team. You gotta work it then break it down flip it an reverse it. #
  • See you soon #
  • Listening to Nine Inch Nails – Dead Souls. It’s a bit early for nihilist music. Hmm, switching to Kylie Minogue. #
  • Pop music is much better for “first thing, Monday morning’, tapping my toes. #
  • Actually Surfin Bird, not Surfing Bird has been the number one Search term on Google all Morning. Go Seth McFarlane. #
  • @happyguy Hmmm, Irfanview? in reply to happyguy #
  • Something I can never have is still *too* sad in the morning – skipped to “The Frogs” #
  • Birth record from the hospital Trig Palin was born, what’s missing? http://tinyurl.com/545d8m #
  • Andrew Sullivan pointed out the whole Birth Record thing, credit where it’s due: http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/2224950/34207681 #
  • Want to go snag some food. Waiting for email response from user. Will wait until 1pm #
  • Didn’t go for food, performed a service call instead #
  • @AlmightyGod Hey God, Did you see this? http://tinyurl.com/3v4fkg Any Comments? in reply to almightygod #
  • @almightygod Works fer me, kick a machine cherub then click this: http://tinyurl.com/3v4fkg in reply to almightygod #
  • Excited, I have a present at home… I wonder what it’ll be? #
  • This man milks a full-grown Dexter cow http://tinyurl.com/4auk7z #

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We Trashed-Out

This is a long-form response to this discussion on Metafilter (since I don’t want to sign in to yet another website this AM)

At 5:30AM August 22nd 2007, after a couple weeks of selling and giving away our stuff, and loading a trailer over the past two days we thought that it would take us about 2 hours to finish getting rid of the stuff in our house.  Over the next 6 hours we would struggle to get the last remains of our lives out of the town house we had lived in the entire time we live in the United States.  Hopelessly in debt and under the schedule gun, we had left the house empty but dirty.  We had filled entire dumpster with what we couldn’t give away along with the area around it (with beds and furniture) and a trailer incorrectly filled with the most precious things we could bring with us.  We had sweated through the last remaining bits of our home and still had several hundred miles of driving ahead of us, after my last “day” at the office.

When we did the same in Canada march 1st 2002, we had used the 14 foot long truck from U-Haul and had still left most of our furniture behind to be taken by a nice polish family, along with several computers, a whole kitchen and a whole hall closet full of “stuff”.  When we finally arrived in the United States, we had only what we could carry in our luggage with us.  It had taken us 8 hours to clean out our house and the friend I had promised to pay for coming to help us showed up after 7 of them.  We had needed his help badly and he expected to be paid the full amount for his minimal work.  I was too tired to disagree and he happily took his money after doing almost nothing. He was unemployed at the time, having lost his job in the same downsize that had taken my entire office out.

When we moved into the Apartment we would eventually leave in 2002, we had the contents of one room.  It was all we had in the world.  Enough “stuff” to fill one room.  My old roommate cleaned out the bits we had left behind and gave it to me in March of 1998.  We sat in a restaurant and shared the last meal we ever would, I haven’t seen that roommate again, and neither have most of the people we both knew.  In this case, Jen and I trashed out a friendship.

When I left my first apartment in 1996, I left behind all of the goods that my parent’s had gifted to me to make apartment life better, my desk, my furniture, cutlery, a vacuum cleaner, dishes, a microwave and random things.  All left, all listed with prices and resale vales to cover a bill my old landlord had given me for a backed up toilet.  80 dollars.  The landlord had rejected the notion that I be allowed to have Jen stay overnight or on the weekends, she was living with me, but the landlord had wanted her to pay rent while sleeping in my one room.  She moved into her own place, but visited frequently, the landlord felt she was over enough to pay rent (how many times have you heard that line from a parent) and so he actually called the police over it.  The police asked me if I wanted to charge the landlord with harassment and urged me to move.  I moved.

When we move on, we leave some of our stuff behind, its inevitable.  We live anywhere long enough and we leave an indellible mark, beyond the stains, on a place.  That townhome in Eugene might not have the pencil marks on the underside of the counters anymore, but it probably still feels like a home that as loved.  When I leave the condo i live in now, it will probably feel like leaving home again.  Sometimes a trash-out is the only way to say goodbye to home.

Review: Meet Dave

Meet Dave

Eddie Murphy plays the dual role of “this generations greatest captain” and “the ship itself” in this Sci-Fi comedy about a crew of 3 inch tall aliens in persuit of a secret weapon designed to steal all of the Salt Water on earth.

Much has been made of how bad “Meet Dave” is, and like “Norbit” before it, most of the problems people have with it can be traced to the easy familiarity of the movie and not to any other quantitive problem. It’s trite and lazy; the plot is obvious and cookie-cutter easy. Aliens come to Earth and take on the attributes of humans, some get into rap, some go crazy and the ostensibly toughest guy on board is a flaming stereotype. Sigh, yawn, seen it before. There are no surprises here. The guy with a stick up his butt goes crazy, takes over the ship an alienates the “kid”. Yawn.

My rating: 2.5 stars
**1/2

The fish out of water story has been done to death, even by Eddie Murphy himself.  This movie might even be best described as a family-friendly “Coming to America” with Arsenio Hall replaced with Gabrielle Union.  It’s pretty much the same movie.  Eddie Murphy’s character tries to blend in with the Humans, fails, falls for a local girl and finds love.  It’s the same basic movie, without James Earl Jones and Sexual Chocolate.

Once again, we have a long-time movie comedian going back to the well for more of the same, hoping to win over his core audience, only to find out that his core audience has grown tired of his work and moved on to dirtier pastures.  When Eddie Murphy tried to go back to dirtier roots (Norbit) they weren’t interested in that either.  Which is a shame, because like Mike Myers’ “The Love Guru”, “Meet Dave” isn’t a bad comedy.  I laughed at the predictable jokes and liked the ending.  Yes, I saw it all coming when I saw the poster, but it didn’t make the ride any worse.

Audiences will go on the same Roller Coaster over and over again, hit the same drops and loops over and over and keep going back, why don’t they do the same for movies by established celebreties?  They see the same stories over and over, the same themes.  It’s not to say that “Meet Dave” is great, but it wasn’t as bad as one would have imagined.  Eddie Murphy was funny, the relationship with the kid was “hearwarming” and the plot was straightforward.  What more can one say about a family-friendly movie?

Dear Candidates: The Copyright Pledge – The NDP Response

I sent this letter to all of the local Candidates:

Good Day,

Earlier in September I contact you for your opinions on various subjects, as a content producer and consumer I am affected strongly by both ends of the copyright debate, if something I produce is reproduced without my consent and proper attribution, consumers of my content will not always be aware of the value I bring them and potential income in the future from said content is lost.  As a consumer, I feel very strongly that I should be entitled to fair-use protections and archiving without fear of reprisal from Government or Non-Government organizations.

I lived south of the Border from 2002-2007 and was constantly reminded of the American Digital Millennium Copyright Act and litigious corporations, even my day to day work was affected, if a graphic I produced was too similar to something found on the Internet, I was often felt coerced to change it, for fear of a copyright claim against my employer.  The Balance between consumers and distributes in severely tipped in the favor of the distributor in the case of the DMCA.  I use the term distributor, because DMCA claims are oftent he work of a content distributor and not the producer or creator of a given item or content.

Mr. Prentice’s Copyright Act appears to be cut from the same cloth I would like very much to see candidates from our local riding take a pledge (as written by Michael Geist, respected author and opinion journalist on the matter) to avoid the same Copyright Pitfalls that have befallen our neighbour to the south.

Will you commit to a balanced approach to copyright reform that reflects the views of all Canadians by pledging:

1.    To respect the rights of creators and consumers.

2.    Not to support any copyright bill that undermines or weakens the Copyright Act’s users rights.

3.    To fully consult with Canadians before introducing any copyright reform bill and to conduct inclusive, national hearings on any tabled bill.

Vous engagerez-vous dans une approche équilibrée de la réforme sur le droit d’auteur qui reflète les opinions de tous les Canadiens et Canadiennes en promettant:

1. de respecter les droits des créateurs et des consommateurs

2. de ne pas supporter tout projet de loi sur le droit d’auteur détruisant ou diminuant les droits des utilisateurs face à la Loi sur le droit d’auteur

3. De consulter pleinement les Canadiens et Canadiennes avant d’introduire toute réforme sur le droit d’auteur et de tenir des audiences nationales inclusives sur tout projet de loi proposé.

Again, I thank your for your time,

Merci pour le tout tes temps,

Kevin Wardrop

The Irene Mathyssen Campaign Responds:

Dear Kevin,

I am writing on behalf of MP Irene Mathyssen in response to your email.  Irene wanted me to please let you know that she signed Professor Geist’s pledge on Saturday October 4th.

Irene understands the importance of protecting both the creators and consumers. Several members of her campaign team are independent artists, including Penn Kemp a poet, and independent publisher and producer of CD’s and books, and as a consumer herself, Irene recognizes that both parties need balanced protection.

Finally, Irene also asked that I please let you know she is also opposed to “bandwidth throttling” by ISPs and would-if re-elected-be working to bring forward legislation to ban this practice.

Regards,
Shawn Lewis
Media & Communications
Irene Mathyssen Campaign

One can only admire a campaign that coordinates a response and adds a note about bandwidth throttling.  Thank-you Shawn Lewis, I appreciate your (and your Candidate’s) time.

For more on the Pledge itself, I recommend visiting Michael Geist’s blog

Dear Candidates: I'm not Voting Liberal

On September 22nd, 2008 I sent this to the local Liberal Candidate:

Good Day Ms. Gauthier,

I live in your riding and would like more information about your stance on Personal Freedom, Government Transparency, Nuclear Power, Culture and Entertainment, Unions and International Trade.

Thanks for your time,

Kevin Wardrop.

Straight forward and simple, I was looking for responses from the three Candidates in my riding who most closely resembeled my political leanings.  The Candidates from the Green and NDP parties replied.  Daniel O’Neail’s Green Party most closely resembles the majority of my Political Leanings (save their enviornmental stance, which I do not agree with)  but Irene Mathyssen presented a more comprehensive and nuanced stance for the NDP.  The Liberal Candidate has yet to reply and with just a few short days left, they have made my decision all the easier, as my arbitrary timer has lapsed and I won’t vote Liberal now, simply over a local matter.  Stephan Dion’s “Democrat Light” approach to the Tories notwithstanding.

It falls to Jack Layton and Elizabeth May now to form an effective opposition to the Tories.  I’ll be watching.

Twitter Updates for 2008-10-03

  • It’s quite cold out. Not cold enough for an undershirt, but it’s heading into that neighborhood #
  • Last night the two garbage bags outside my house reproduced and produced a third bag. I wish I had seen whomever dropped it there. #
  • @alternaloser They left evidence of malfeasance, they tore my other bags and left bits and pieces all over my lawn. in reply to alternaloser #
  • Maybe I should have shaved, I feel kinda out of it, I had about 4 hours sleep last night then Jen woke me up coming to bed at 3 am. #
  • I’m guess he didn’t know the Xmas eve rule: http://tinyurl.com/4la958 #
  • @alternaloser What, Bush wasn’t? in reply to alternaloser #
  • Someone sneak over to Damon’s Desk and right “Psilons Paid me to Write this” on his board, pics or it didn’t happen #
  • @RevNathan were you “The Rev” or were you some established character? in reply to RevNathan #
  • @definetheline My mind works best in the shower. That’s when all the gears turn correctly and the neurons fire right. in reply to definetheline #
  • Your Sample is too small: “The married and unmarried focus groups of 10” #
  • I ended up not feeling like getting wet last night…maybe we’ll go out and shoot tonight if we don’t end up driving to Kincardine #
  • The laptop build I’m working on went Pop, trying again… #
  • hmmm, can’t get to the phone at home… phone is off the hook #
  • @happyguy Re: The Gaming Conference, maybe if I have the cash l8ter on. in reply to happyguy #
  • I was going to comment on a blog, but realized that I’m not sure that my NDA is up. Is it up? I don’t know. #
  • @happyguy I was complimented on my work emails recently, “English Major?” “10 years of emails and statements for a corp. web site” “Gotcha” in reply to happyguy #
  • That’s it, I think I am gonna vote, something. I asked for a copyright pledge from the locals in my riding, stay tuned! #

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