Black, White & Bloody Grey

Yushu Earthquake

2010-04-18T04:25:00.000+08:00

We take a short time to look at the recent cataclysmic disaster that hit Qinghai, China.

Yes, while we here at The Daily Zombies, fully relished in more than occasional sardonicism and mockery on the strange ways of the human kind, there are at times, some issues that any living human can't afford to simply turn a blind eye and look away.

On April 14th, a 7.1-magnitude earthquake struck Yushu, Qinghai, China, at 7:49 am local time, with the epicenter located at Rima village (日玛村/日麻村), Upper Laxiu township (上拉秀乡) of Yushu County, in remote and rugged terrain, near the border of Tibet Autonomous Region. The epicenter is about 30 km from Gyêgu town, the seat of Yushu County, and about 240 km from Qamdo, and is in fact a sparsely populated area on the Tibetan plateau that is regularly hit by earthquakes.

Sparse indeed, but nonetheless populated. What touches me in particular is the above picture of a nine-month-old child child who was injured in the earthquake and is now awaiting rescue and evacuation (on the cover of the April 16th edition of Singapore'Straits Times. As of now, 1,484 people have been confirmed dead, 312 missing, and 12,088 injured of which 1,394 are severely injured.

The scale of the calamity and fears of disease has forced a break from the traditional Tibetan "Sky Burials" in which corpses are left on mountaintops to decompose or be consumed by vultures as massive cremation were conducted.

The Huffington Post has put up an article on how help can be rendered to aid the victims. Do be mindful of the regular donation fraud that always appears whenever a major crisis arises.

Survivalism

2009-10-20T03:00:00.000+08:00

A great display of survivalism.

Officials in Melbourne, Australia have just released CCTV (Closed-circuit television) on Friday, depicting an incident in the Melbourne subway where a baby were being hit by an incoming train. The baby rolled off the edge of the railway platform when her mother inadvertently release her baby stroller just as the train were approaching. The baby, strapped into the stroller, were reportedly dragged under the train for 100 feet before the train came to a stop. Fortunately, and rather incredibly, I must add, the child suffered only very minor injuries. Paramedic on site confirms this..."Fortunately the train was slowing as it pulled into the station. The baby received a bump to his head and was distressed when we arrived Luckily he was strapped into his pram at the time, which probably saved his life.Luckily he was strapped into his pram at the time, which probably saved his life."

Disney Acquires Marvel

2009-09-01T18:38:00.000+08:00

Excelsior!

Brave yourself, Marvel Zombies! For when Marvel boldly go where no superheroes had gone before, you gonna need all the war-cries there is out there.

It's official. Marvel Entertainment, affectionately known as "The House of Ideas" has been acquired by Disney.

For those who actually cares about the details and figures behind the stellar deal, here's an excerpt from the Official Press Release from Disney:-

Building on its strategy of delivering quality branded content to people around the world, The Walt Disney Company (DIS) has agreed to acquire Marvel Entertainment, Inc. (MVL) in a stock and cash transaction, the companies announced today.

Under the terms of the agreement and based on the closing price of Disney on August 28, 2009, Marvel shareholders would receive a total of $30 per share in cash plus approximately 0.745 Disney shares for each Marvel share they own. At closing, the amount of cash and stock will be adjusted if necessary so that the total value of the Disney stock issued as merger consideration based on its trading value at that time is not less than 40% of the total merger consideration.

Based on the closing price of Disney stock on Friday, August 28, the transaction value is $50 per Marvel share or approximately $4 billion.

In summary, copyrights of all 5,000 over Marvel characters are now at Disney's disposal, notwithstanding, amongst other subsidiaries, the toy division, Marvel Toys (formerly Toy Biz), the comic publishing wing, Marvel Publishing, Inc., the animation wing, Marvel Animation, and, yes, where the money are... Marvel Studios, the film producing studio, of which its joint production with Paramount Films, Iron Man had generated half a billion by its own. That, is a cash cow the size of Galactus.

Nevertheless, Disney had earlier indicated that they have every intention to respect Paramount's distribution deal with Marvel and the ongoing Avengers franchise, but honestly stated that it is in their best interest, overtime, to become the sole distributor of Marvel Films. Likewise for existing licensing and distribution deals.

In assuring the gun-carrying Marvel Zombies, Disney references the Pixar deal (which Disney bought in 2006 for $7.4-billion) and will manage Marvel in the very same vein of hands-off relationship they had with the avant-garde animators. Additionally, much praises was handed out by Disney to Marvel towards the licensing in all aspects, particularly the video gaming and film adaptations. Incidentally, the Disney cable channel Disney XD is already running about 20 hours a week of Marvel content currently, which expectedly will be going much higher moving forward.

All seemed to be in bliss with the killer merger, with Stan Lee's full endorsements, Joe Quesada, the current Editor-In-Chief of Marvel twittering happily and the fact that Pixar’s John Lasseter has already met with key Marvel creative executives and are looking into potential partnerships.

Marvel, with its fairshare of hardships(changing hands of ownership in the 80s, enduring the bankruptcy in the 90s, etc), is now entering the next stage. This is not unlike DC Comics' purchase by Warner Bros back in 1969. Back then, Warner Bros already owns Looney Tunes and its assorted cartoon characters but still reaches out for the comic characters. And time had proven that deal a most fruitful one. I am not concerned with Marvel's future hampered with X-Men getting all High School Musical, Hannah Montana joining the Avengers (Dark, Mighty or New) like what most of the online communities are murmuring about. That is not going to happen. Marvel will grow with a much steady hand at helm. Makes Stan Lee's welcome comments all the more resonating.

However, there are indeed some killer crossover that you gotta keep an eye on, say, the final battle between the ducks... I'm sure comic-reading folks are pretty much familiar with the single and very much long-standing feud between Howard The Duck and Donald Duck? Let the Ducks duke it out...

Howard The Duck VS Donald Duck!

For further reading, check out the industry reaction to the merge covered by comicbookresources.

What Horror?! Japanese Film Festival

2009-08-26T06:40:00.005+08:00

Unimpressed by the affectionately coined J-Horror, being the self-proclaimed daredevil that you are? Well, we'll see what you are made of.

Go be awed by the pioneers and truly, the masters of horrors who inspired the current ever-so-copy-friendly J-Horror stereotype, at the Japanese Film Festival in Singapore this year from 25th to 30th August 2009 exclusively at the Singapore Museum with half the screenings up for free admission.

Featuring Onibaba, a 1964 noir classic made in Japan, that had always remained an unseen film in my never-fulfilled to-watch-list and was released in its most appreciated condition in the Criterion Collection DVD that displayed brutal humanity in all its raw beauty and ugly facet.

All kinds of frustration already ran wild here for missing out "House", a 1977 film that was written by the director's then 7-years-old daughter, with all kinds of timely weirdness in the late 70s.

Check out the official site for more screening details and information pertaining the event.

Be disturbed, I'll say.

That's the single most unspoken element in modern horrors.

The Storm Warriors 風雲II Preview

2009-08-18T01:50:00.011+08:00

With the summer blockbusters season behind us, the general cinema-loitering public can only look forward to the Christmas season for big budget blockbuster. And it's not just the Hollywood.

Scheduled to open this Christmas, The Storm Warriors (風雲II) (see my previous entry) had just released their full trailer, in an untimely coincidence with its box office rival, Sherlock Holmes, which will also be released on the 25th of December 2009.

Looks decent, what with the very much graphically pleasing shot of Nameless Wu Ming (無名, with 何家勁 Kenny Ho brilliantly cast)'s sword moves and relatively cool (but otherwise very much reeks of 300) film tone, check out the full trailer.

For the fans: This last screen is here just so you know how dedicated the film is following the source.

Brian Bolland Coming To The Singapore Toys, Games And Comic Convention

2009-08-15T10:40:00.005+08:00

Some free-of-charge advert here...Living in Singapore and being a fan of toys, games and comic, after all...

This year's Singapore Toys, Games And Comic Convention definitely seem promising, what with the obligatory Cosplay (always a good source of hilarity) and toy design competition, exclusive movie trailer screenings (courtesy of local cinema giant, Golden Village) and one additional event unprecedented here: a Walk Of Fame meet-and-greet autograph session featuring... Drum roll please, one of my all-time favourite artist, Brian Bolland himself.

For the uninitiated, other than his be-all-end-all "Killing Joke" with the almighty Alan Moore, Brian is arguably the best cover artist around with his massive body of work (especially so for Wonder Woman) churning out from DC on a regular basis, genre-defining stuffs on 2000 AD (especially Judge Dredd with his creation of Judge Death) and his alternate riff of epic Arthurian saga, Camelot 3000.

So pardon the Fanboy tone here.

"I Find Your Lack Of Humour Disturbing."

2009-08-05T01:12:00.000+08:00

Unbeknownst to the general public, and more importantly the Star-Wars fanatics out there in particular, Disney actually organized their very own Star Wars Weekends event amongst employees. And to the absolute horrors for the fanboys, they actually created sets of posters on an annually basis to promote awareness of the events, away from the eyes of the public!!!

Very much tongue-in-cheek ones, though... Check it out.

Freedom To Lead

2009-07-31T10:41:00.002+08:00

Shepard Fairey, creator of OBEY GIANT and lately, made even more famous for his Barack Obama "Hope" poster, has conjured up another piece of illustrated portrait poster in his typical starkingly stylistic method.

While the aforementioned Obama poster was created in support of Obama's presidential camppaign (and arguably, it did more than its predicated part), this latest piece, a strikingly colorful portrait of Aung San Suu Kyi, with dove imagery at her heart, propaganda-esque sun-rising background and “FREEDOM TO LEAD” as the slogan, actually serves to, in Shepard's own words, "to raise awareness of her on-going house arrest and the oppressive nature of the military regime ruling Burma".

Prints of this poster are available for download and purchase at the OBEY GIANT site at thirty five bucks and the proceeds from the sale will go to benefit the Human Rights Action Center and The U.S. Campaign for Burma.

For more on the background of Aung San Suu Kyi's ongoing predicament, check out The U.S. Campaign for Burma, Human Rights Action Center (where a letter template addressed to both the United States House of Representatives
and the United States Senate, written to effect the passing of the Renewal of the Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act )and Causecast.

Robert Downey Jr Is Sherlock Holmes

2009-07-26T10:16:00.001+08:00

Coming your way later this year, are the Sherlock Holmes Double Bill, with Guy Ritchie at helm on the serious re-imagined version featuring Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law as Holmes and Watson, respectively, while the whacky version will reunite Sacha "Brüno" Baron Cohen and his Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby co-star Will Ferrell as Holmes and Watson in an unsurprisingly comedic version.

Check out the first character poster featuring Robert Downey Jr as Holmes himself.

Thomas The Fucking Angry Transformer Tank Engine

2009-07-20T08:41:00.003+08:00

In another homage to and in the vein of all things Transformer in light of the disastrous disaster movie sequel, Thomas The Tank Engine gets a little overtly anthromorphic here.

Courtesy of glennz.

No New Tale To Tell, 31 Years On My Way To Hell

2009-07-19T07:19:00.002+08:00

...Happy Birthday

Pride And Prejudice And Zombies And The Literary Circle At Large

2009-07-18T10:50:00.004+08:00

“One day I was talking to my agent about the publishing industry and one of us said, ‘You know, the only thing selling right now is Jane Austen and vampires. We could do this book and call it Jane Austen Sucks.’” - Michael Thomas Ford.

The same Michael Thomas Ford, as introduced in his wiki entry as "a gay writer of primarily gay-themed literature" and incidentally, the author of the upcoming novel, Jane Bites Back, the first of a three-book series about Jane Austen living as a modern-day vampire. So they did ditch the aforementioned godawlful title, after all. Not that there's much room for improvement, given the subject.

Anyway, the opening quote is just an entry note on an undoubtably peculiar yet gradually emerging mentality amongst the publishing industry. Surely, crossover between peers and now genres are almost certain to be a success depending on the fanfare of the subject materials but we need not be reminded of the body count of the bastard son that neither parent would ever give their blessings to. Well then, at least Jane Austen has been dead for almost two centuries and probably more used to turning around in her grave given her upcoming turn as a vampire herself. And this title we have at hand are much more literal than one would have expected.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

Quite possibly, that title itself is already a cash generator. First published in April 2009 by Quirk Books in America, the, somewhat quirkily mashed-up fiction fantasy combining (in an extremely literal way, much like its title) Jane Austen's classic 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice with modern zombie elements. How could it possibly work> Writer, Seth Grahame-Smith says it best.

“You have this fiercely independent heroine, you have this dashing heroic gentleman, you have a militia camped out for seemingly no reason whatsoever nearby, and people are always walking here and there and taking carriage rides here and there,” he said. “It was just ripe for gore and senseless violence. From my perspective anyway."

Featuring the "dashing heroic gentleman", Fitzwilliam Darcy, Monster-Hunter and "fiercely independent heroine", Elizabeth Bennet, well-versed in the sophisticated ways of Martial Arts and Zombie-bashing together with her four fellow sisters, and the stars of this show, an entire legion of our dearest departed undead zombies.

And yes, mashed-up genre crossovers might be the way to go, judging by the warm reception towards this self-styled Zombie Classical. Ever the silent predator hiding in plain sight waiting for its potential preys in this cruel jungle deprived of originality and creativity, an undisclosed Hollywood studio had already won the bidding battle for the filming rights.

Hell, even the cover is a "zombification" of William Beechey's 19th century portrait.

Where Graphic Art Meets Dismal Science

2009-07-09T00:21:00.001+08:00

"When comic books and economics collide, Ecocomics is Ground Zero. And we have charts."

That's the tagline of this blog of particular nifty and gradually interesting reads. Covering dismal topics blurring the thin fabric between reality and comics, ranging from Superhuman Escort Service (okay, superhuman sex industry); the impact that fictional countries (such as Wakanda, Latveria and Kahndaq) can have on world economy; detailed analysis (complete with charts!) on Batman's Rogue Gallery chances of getting the job done (what Heath Ledger famously said in The Dark Knight, "It's simple. We, uh…kill the Batman."); and attempts to answer the question on who is the richest comic book character!

Some crazy excerpts below...

Now, let's assign the probabilities. I'm going to assume that each Batman rogue has a 2% chance of killing Batman alone (and this is being very, very generous and neglecting the individual skills of each rogue for simplicity). You would then think that adding villains to the scheme would increase the probability of killing Batman by 2% with each new rogue. Except, this ignores the economics law of diminishing returns, which states that as you increase the factors of production, the marginal benefit of those factors decreases. Usually, this applies to outcomes which are continuous (such as production of goods) rather than binary (to kill or not to kill Batman), but we can apply diminishing returns in this case to the probabilities. The theory is that as you add villains, working together will prove more difficult and planning more arduous. Therefore, the probability of getting Batman will increase, but by a marginally smaller amount with each villain added.

Thinking of probability as output, let's assume that in each state,
p = 2*y^0.9, where
p = probability of killing batman and
y = number of villains involved in the scheme.

Hence, we have a diminishing returns function. If there is only one villain involved in the scheme, the probability of killing Batman is 2%.

If there are 2 villains involved in the scheme, the probability becomes:
p = 2*(2)^0.9 = 3.73% (the probability increased by 1.73 percentage points)

If there are three villains involved, then:
p = 2*(3)^0.9 = 5.38% (probability increased by 1.65 percentage points)

And so on and so forth. Now armed with the knowledge of probabilities and utilities, let's conduct an analysis of whether it makes sense for the Joker to team up with Two-Face and the Scarecrow. We must analyze the expected utility of each scenario (teaming up and working alone).

First let's calculate the expected utility of working alone for the Joker. The equation is:
EU = p * (Uk) + (1-p)*(Unk) where
EU = expected utility
p = probability of killing Batman
Uk = utility of killing Batman.
Unk = utility of not killing Batman

We know that for the Joker, the utility of killing Batman alone is 10 and the probability of killing Batman by himself is 0.02. Hence:
EU = 0.02*(10) + (0.98)*0 = 0.2
Hence the expected utility of the Joker killing Batman on his own is 0.2.

Now, we analyze the expected utility of the team-up. We know that the probability of the Joker, Two-Face and the Scarecrow killing Batman is 0.0538. The utility would be 3.33 each. Hence:
EU = 0.0538*(3.33) + (0.9462)*0 = 0.179
Hence the expected utility for the Joker of the trio killing Batman is 0.179.

Johnny Depp Is The Mad Hatter

2009-07-08T10:02:00.004+08:00

Yes, it's Tim Burton's magnum opus, Alice In Wonderland, set ten years after the original adventures with Alice almost a full-fledged adult now.

And yes, that's Johnny Depp alright. You would kinda half anticipated a probable romance between Alice and the good ol' Hatta by looking at that cast.

Tekken 6's Alternate Outfits By Famed Mangaka Revealed

2009-07-01T01:04:00.000+08:00

It was long announced that following Tekken 5: Dark Ressurection's crowd-pleasing alternate outfits for almost every characters, Tekken 6, hitting the third-gen home consoles and PSP, promised to be bigger and better by inviting more high profile Managka into the fray.

And the first reveal (conveniently sourced from Japan's Gamespot site) is quite a kicker, featuring Clamp, the famed all-female Mangaka group, taking on the main protagonist/antagonist, Jin Kazama.

Comfortably glam by the standards of Clamp, the indisputable larger-than-life brought shades of Lars Alexandersson's in-game alternate superhero-esque outfit to mind but surpassed it by having that uniquely cold, blue-blooded Mishima's villainous aura to it. Aptly so since Jin is officially turning heel this time round.

Speaking of Lars Alexandersson, word is another high profile Managaka, Masashi Kishimoto of Naruto had a run on the alternate costume for him. Courtesy of sdtekken.com, we have a scan of it.

CHANGE... Into A Truck

2009-06-24T00:38:00.002+08:00

Just in time to "coincide" with "Revenge Of The Fallen".

We all knew back then that this pop art portrait of Obama gonna be iconic. And in this time and age, getting parodied, spoofed or what ever you want to called it, is just part of the trial for any pop culture remnants to reach iconic status.

This cheeky image done by Tom Doyle is available for sale as an art print here.

The Life And Passion (And Shameless Rip-off Of Batman) Christ

2009-06-20T06:34:00.000+08:00

Batman begins.

Christ follows.

Well, that's a more polite way of saying plagiarize, rip-off, swipe or steal, that is.

Love Is...Loath. Apparently.

2009-06-15T08:34:00.001+08:00

Salvaged from my junkbox of drafts is this little animal.

This was, as I vividly remembered, back in 2005 mind you, originally from an independent.co.uk article. Double damnation that I even have the exact link which is now dead and will lead you to the main page of independent.co.uk.

Fortunately, thanks to the immortality of internet memes, I found a blog devoted entire to this subject, complete with the quoted text I had from the original article. Goes a long way to show you the relentless way one abuses the free blog system.

Anyway, have fun.

The good people syndicating 'Love Is..' comics recently ran a contest where fans of the long-running strip could submit their own takes on this time-honored classic. This was taken by some to mean that there was an interest in changing or at least shifting the sensibility of the comic, one of the great one-panel strips in cartooning history.

This notion was mistaken. In fact, contained herein are some stabs that very narrowly skirted legal action.

What happened to this post that it remained in the Draft junkbox for more than four freaking years deludes me.

Pope Does Yojimbo

2009-06-13T05:17:00.000+08:00

Behold.

The reputedly multi-award-winning comic book illustrator, Paul Pope, fully capable of injecting his jab at the core of pop culture given his previous works on churning out not one, but two alternate Batman that proves to be thought-provoking and nonetheless artistically fulfilling, had move on to produce a bold new rendition of Akira Kurosawa's timeless classic, Yojimbo.

The print, available at the nakatomic site as both a normal poster and a special wooden one, is definitely not your run-of-the-mill mundane jam art.

Flag Of Earth

2009-06-12T06:33:00.001+08:00

Earth does have a flag all its own, so it would seemed.
The rationale and history behind the flag can be found via the official site and here's an excerpt on detailing its obvious design.

The Flag of Earth symbolizes the Earth (the center blue disk), the Sun (the yellow disk on the left), and the Moon (the white disk on the right). The Earth and its most important celestial neighbors - the Sun and Moon - are overlaid on a backdrop of the darkness of space.

R.I.P. David Carradine And Shih Kien (石堅)

2009-06-06T15:49:00.007+08:00

Amidst this tumultuous day (being the twentieth 4th June since 1989, after all), life proves that tragic news still got a way to upstage otherwise pointless anniversary.

If I'm less respectful, I'll call this entry R.I.P. Double Bill, in lieu to the its Grindhouse B graded film's origins for both the departed actors, David Carradine And Shih Kien (石堅). Incidentally, two of the most iconic villains of the silver screen, what with the role of the titular "Bill" in Quentin Tarrantino's Double Bill Classic Homage to B Actioner, Kill Bill;

and one of the best-known B Actioner arch-villain, Han (the one with cheapskate Wolverine's claws, most famously in the last mirror sequence), from Bruce Lee's equally iconic high octane "Enter The Dragon".

A noble, genuine pugilist perhaps more suitable than anybody else to play the role of Wong Fei Hong, the legendary righteous Kung Fu Master, Shih Kien, instead found fame or rather infamy in playing Wong's opposite number, the villainous Kien.

A short intro of him from Wiki as below:-

Shih Kien (石堅, Shek Kin; 1 January 1913 - 3 June 2009), sometimes credited as Shek Kin or Kien Shih in the Western order, was a veteran actor of Cantonese wuxia movies in Hong Kong. His name has become synonymous with villain, as he tended to play evil characters. In Hong Kong, there is a slang expression that compares people's evil deeds with Shih Kien's, despite the fact these deeds were committed by the evil characters he played, not the actor. He was actually well-respected within the Hong Kong motion picture industry and recognized as a very kind and passionate man. He was found dead from kidney failure on June 3, 2009 at the age of 96.

In the meantime, David Carradine, finding fame in "Shane" and to a much more extent later, in "Kung Fu", the TV series, after (reportedly) Bruce Lee reject the role back then, was found dead from a sex act that went wrong after his body was discovered Thursday morning hanging from a wardrobe rail in a Bangkok hotel room, naked and with ropes attached to his neck and penis. The official release for the cause of death is autoerotic asphyxiation. That sounded something straight from an episode of CSI, eh?

Happy Chinese Internet Maintenance Day

2009-06-04T23:24:00.003+08:00

Today, 4th of June, is...

Why yes, many Chinese online communities (some obediently while some in retaliation to the latter, did it with their tongues firmly in cheek) had come to call it the

"Chinese Internet Maintenance Day".

But more importantly, and really, the core of the day, today is

the twentieth anniversary of Tiananmen Square Protest in 1989.

Earlier this week the government blocked access to a number of popular western websites, in what was widely seen as way of controlling access to information about the events at Tiananmen Square. Among the sites that were screened out were photo-sharing website Flickr, Microsoft's Hotmail email service and the popular online messaging site Twitter.

A number of other sites appear to have gone down over recent days, however, in a move that may be part of an ad hoc anniversary protest online.

According to Chinese media blog Danwei, the music-sharing service VeryCD has been taken down, as well as Fanfou, a local version of Twitter. But rather than simply fail to load, which would be typical for websites blocked by the firewall, many of the sites are now carrying messages saying that they are closed for maintenance.

It is not clear whether any of the sites took down their services as a result of government pressure: most have had previous trouble with the authorities in Beijing, and reports suggest that many sites were told that they would face serious consequences if they published anything relating to the events of 4 June 1989.

But it was also suggested that the phrasing used by some of the websites indicates a subtle attack on the government.

While deliberate government action cannot be ruled out, more than 300 Chinese sites appear to have posted increasingly blasé maintenance messages on the anniversary.

"The Fanfou server is undergoing technical maintenance. Service is expected to resume before dawn on 6 June," said one message. On dictionary website WordKu.com, its owners said they had taken the site down for Chinese Internet Maintenance Day.

Blog hosting service Bullog.org, meanwhile, says it has gone "on strike" for the day, and Wuqing.org carried a message saying: "I, too, am under maintenance!"

Internet users in China often deploy subtle methods to criticise the government without falling foul of the law.

For the kids who knows shit about the ordeal, the gates of wiki is always there for you, with one of them held right open in the link up there.

In retrospect, one can't help but feel the bewilderment at "the times they are changing". Months ago, I've been picking up the mutters and whispers at the back alley of many Chinese Forums etc, some tell-tale legends about how wearing Sport Jerseys sporting the number "20" will get them detained by the Chinese Authorities.

Is it real?

Guessed we might have a hard time verifying that, but seeing how the internet generation launched their very much subtle yet bogglingly effective digs at the Chinese Authorities, it seems that the Chinese, a sure-fire representative of the World-At-Large (what with their sheer population), though none the sensible than anybody everywhere else, are showing their collective consciousness.

And it glows.

In the meantime, let's take a quick peek at the "affected areas".

Swallowed by the very flag that you are raising. How meaningfully ironic..

In the rowdy streets of Hong Kong, a "Toy Soldier" reminds all of the military might.

Photos via telegraph.co.uk

Attack Of The Killer Bs

2009-05-30T02:53:00.000+08:00

Rejoice yet, yer faithless, heartless (a prerequisite for any known fans, I'm afraid) fan of the infamous B action flicks!

(If you have a problem recognizing this genre, think Steven Seagal with his 60s' Batman moves (yes I know he's a black belt master...doesn't make any difference to the lame & tame action sequences) and Jean-Claude Van Damme and his body of works, of whom absence here is best explained by the very much self-parodied JCVD, where he plays himself caught in an actual B Action Flick situation. Well, all in all, another story for another time.)

A gathering of the B Flick stars, directed, written and starring in a lead role by the Undisputed Emperor of Bs, Sylvester Stallone himself!

Let's roll with the ensemble...

Jason Statham... Forget Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson or Vin "The Pacifier" Diesel, the one true heir to true blue B...

Jet Li... A bone fide grade star in Asia, but sadly, made to suit B' Flicks in the West, but nonetheless beats good ol's Jason Statham when it comes to top billing...

Dolph Lundgren... If Stallone is indeed the Emperor, he is the Darth Vader...with his terrifying horrendous work rate at churning out the Bs..

Stone Cold Steve Austin... Not much Bs to offer, what with his mediocre offer to Hollywood, headlining the WWE film, The Condemned and, uh not much else.

Here's the poster. A Vintage...B poster, I must add.

Watch for it!

Houston, We Have A Codec Problem!

2009-05-29T00:48:00.002+08:00

From Slashdot.

Atlantis astronauts fixed the Hubble Space Telescope so it could beam cosmic pictures to Earth, but playing DVDs on their laptops is proving too difficult.

With an unwanted off day Friday because thunderstorms prevented their scheduled landing, the astronauts intended to pass the time by watching movies they brought on the mission. But when they tried to play them, they found out that their laptops didn't have the proper software.

Engineers on the ground tried to troubleshoot the problem - just as they did when a hand rail almost prevented spacewalkers from fixing one instrument in Hubble. After more than an hour with no solution, the astronauts gave up.

Astronaut John Grunsfeld radioed to Earth that they'd have to wait to watch something at a terrestrial movie theater.

The proud makers behind vlc probably had an epiphany after reading this. Pretty sure every average joe on the street had the very same frustration before...

Screw Rocket Science! Screw cosmic picture! I just want to play my video!

Blinding Image Of May

2009-05-28T01:35:00.004+08:00

We are indeed living an age of being basked in the golden ray of the golden age of comic book-to-movie adaptation. Or so it seems, with this delicate compilation of some sorry excuse of cosplaying Superhero wannabes.

By the by, I'm being kind here.... The original title of the source were "some fags dressed in super hero costumes". And if you think this is indeed blinding, check out the original.