In the first episode we go through a bit of a (general) history lesson, talk nostalgically about Star Wars Galaxies, take a look at Wurm Online and the recent adventures of its developer, discuss the inclusion of statted gear in Lord of the Rings Online‘s item shop and how the move to free-to-play has worked out for Star Trek Online (hint: pretty well).

Do take a listen, please give us feedback and enjoy!

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These two need to get into some kind of bar room brawl. A fist fight like that would be epic.

I loved how Neeson seemed to not give a damn while Stewart was very concerned with now his little guy performed. It was not really a fair fight though. Pitting a robot bank from 2000 against a crummy deluxe gimmick figure form the mid 90s. Pitting the early 80s Wars with the late 80s Trek would have been a more even match.

Kenner Han, Galoob Picard, Kenner Anakin

Or for the current ones a Hasbro Qui-Gon and a Diamond Select Picard.

Hasbro Qui-Gon Jinn

Diamond Select Jean-Luc Picard

A Cat in Florida

Harvey Dent

The cat was born a few days ago in Port Charlotte, Florida to the owners Nash Hand and his wife Amanda Forsythe. Being comic book lovers; they seemed it only fitting to give the horribly afflicted cat the name of the famous Batman villian Two-Face AKA Harvey Dent. I would have gone for ‘table for two’, but that’s just me.

The first question that is raised is simple; which face is called Harvey and which one is called Dent? And secondly, if the cat sits a test is it not cheating to have two heads in one exam?

Janus cats, named after the Roman god Janus who had/has two heads, are known to suffer from serious health conditions and not to have long lives.

The Guinness Book of Records people are, however, ignoring this and licking their lips at the prospect of a new entry in their 2013 edition. They already have a log of the record for the longest cat to live with two faces, an impressive 12 years, in their repertoire. Surprisingly, this achievement has gone unchallenged for a long time but now Harvey Dent is hoping to steal that crown. Go Harvey go!

Want to see a video of the cat as a young kitten before it grows up and threatens to blow up the Bat Cave? Of course you do:

According to Twitch Film, “Harrison Ford has entered into early talks to join the new Blade Runner”. I would be extremely surprised if this would pan out to be true - Ridley Scott will most probably be the only person returning to the franchise – but it’s an interesting rumor nonetheless.

Reintroducing Deckard would probably work best as a cameo rather than as a leading role, and I’m pretty curious how they would handle the way the actor has aged these past thirty years, considering … well … you know. That entire replicant thing.

Still, if this would mean keeping Ford away from doing another Indiana Jones movie, I’m all for it.

The aliens are easier to see in this movie, and I’m still torn on who I think they are. Sometimes it looks like Frost Giants, sometimes it looks like HYDRA, sometimes it looks like the Badoon and sometimes like Skrulls.

Updated: I’ve added a couple of screen captures from the trailer. Enjoy! If you want to see more, Geek Tyrant has a brilliant collection.

We learn that Petter and I are siamese twins joined by the aura, that Arkenor features heavily in Swedish games journalism, that Star Wars: The Old Republic has sold surprisingly well, and that Soul Calibur V was a bit of a disappointment. We also had a bit of a diversion by talking about TV series, for once. Once Upon a Time and Alcatraz were mentioned. Briefly.

In Quiz Kids, Petter and Arkenor are challenged by Jon Broadley’s Guinness Book of World Record questions, with questions about the world’s largest natural breasts, the person with the world’s smallest waist, widest mouth, heaviest lifted weight by the nipples or by the tongue, milk squirting via the eye, fastest mile on a space hopper, running hurdles wearing swim fins, a dog walking down stairs while balancing a glass of water and contortionists in a box. It was all pretty confusing.

After announcing the winner of Quiz Kids, we moved on to the Deathmatch of Death and More Death, where we learn how the Yoda vs. Magneto fight went and introduce two new fighters. Stay tuned!

Then there’s this.

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If that wasn’t bad enough, depriving Being Human fans of two main characters and some serious man candy, Sinead Keenan is leaving the show off-screen, as well. Of the three main characters, only Lenora Chrichlow (Annie) is going to be left for a hypothetical fifth series, along with Turner and Tovey’s replacements who I’m not going to mention. I may or may not still be in denial over losing the man candy.

Pictured: man candy.

My rhetorical question is this: Could this series still work with most of the principal cast gone?

My answer to that rhetorical question: Probably not.

(What? I’m allowed to answer my own rhetorical questions.)

Probably not, because the first thing it brings to mind is all those other times a franchise has progressed when the “heart” of the thing has gone. Just to stay in TV-land, I’m thinking of shows like Scrubs, whose ninth series tanked midseason after the departure of Zach Braff, or The Office (the U.S. version), which improbably shambles along even after Steve Carell left after seven seasons. Or perhaps I’m still bitter about the way Red Dwarf tried to continue without an Arnold Rimmer (Chris Barrie) and then, later, without a Rob Grant, letting the Most Hilarious Sitcom Ever Made [citation needed] to rot in its later seasons. Or what about when Eoin Colfer wrote a sixth Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy book, and it was, by all accounts, kind of awful (or at least not as good as the standard set by Douglas Adams)?

The continuation of a dead series – reanimating it into a “zombie franchise” – has less to do with the need to continue the story than it has to do with the need for familiarity and the human urge to shovel more of a good thing down our throats. Why flog the undead horse, then? Simply put, it’s because the BBC knows it has an audience for it, and that audience is going to watch the fourth series despite the sudden lack of man candy. I mean, awesome characters. It’s like being addicted to crack; there’s more of it here, why not keep smoking crack?

This is a bad analogy. Even if you leave aside the fact I’ve never been cool enough to be offered crack cocaine (and it might be obvious that I have no idea whether you smoke it, or inject it, or what), watching a TV show about vampires and werewolves who share a flat isn’t going to adversely affect your well-being. I can’t comment on that; the reviews aren’t even in yet. That would be unfair.

Should we care whether it’s going to continue beyond the departure of a couple of cast members? Well, yes: Being Human has been a consistently great show for three series now, and I mean, look at the premise. It’s about a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost who share a flat in Bristol. But, improbably, it worked, because of the character interaction and the life these characters managed to breathe into them, and yes, that was very much intentional. If you’ve spent three series with Being Human, you’ve spent time with the characters. I have to assume their departure means they’ve reached the end of their natural arcs, and to keep going beyond that would be too much to ask of the audience. Buffy managed it with its sixth and seventh seasons, but only just.

Saying that, am I still going to tune in? Yes. Because I want to know what happens next. I’m aware of the cognitive dissonance.

Already the title of the episode, Fruit of the Poisonous Tree, should give us an indication about what the episode will cover. “Fruit of the poisonous tree” is a legal metaphor in the United States used to describe evidence that is obtained illegally. The logic of the terminology is that if the source of the evidence (the “tree”) is tainted, then anything gained from it (the “fruit”) is as well.

In Fairytale, we’re given a story about a king (Richard Schiff) who finds a magic lamp, which he rubs and is offered three wishes. Having everything in the world, his first wish is to free the genie. His second wish is to give the genie his third wish. Since we already know that the genie is the same person as the man in the mirror, we can only assume that this third wish is somehow related to that fact, right? Right.

Lana Parilla as Regina

Anyway, we return with King Leopold and the genie and learn some more about the family relationship. He’s the father of Snow White (Ginnifer Goodwin), whose mother is dead. He is, however, remarried to Regina (Lana Parrilla), who seems to be slightly less than happy with the entire ordeal. Time passes and we learn that Regina wants to die because of how miserable her lot in life is. Still, she’s convinced by the genie, who has fallen in love with her, that it is possible to kill the king instead, which would set her free. She agrees that this is a much better idea, so he does so, only to realize that she’s been using him all this time (Quelle surprise, non?) and that this was her plan all along. Angry with her, but still in love, he realizes that she’s already called the guards on him, so he uses his third and last wish to be close to her forever and always be with her. At that, he disappears into thin air, only to be found behind the face of a mirror, not as happy with his circumstances as he had hoped.

In Storybrooke, we meet up with Henry (Jared Gilmore) and Emma (Jennifer Morrison), who visit the site of the jungle gym they often use as a meeting place. It’s been damaged by the storm we saw in the previous episode, which isn’t too good, since it’s where Henry hides The Book nowadays. He recovers the book from the sand and all is fine with the world again.

The episode itself centers on Sidney Glass, who we now learn has been removed from his position as journalist by the mayor (Wait a second; she can do that?) and looking for vengeance. I didn’t buy his motivations for a second, but apparently, Emma is more trusting than I am and the two go sleuthing. One of the things they find (apart from a weird set of $50,000 have been embezzled from the city. Apparently, Regina wants to build a house in the forest!

Now, where might these key lead?

Over at a strangely well-populated Town Hall meeting, Emma stands up and tells the whole town that their mayor has been embezzling funds, at which point Regina simply smiles and shows them a Powerpoint presentation of a children’s playhouse that she’s been planning to put up now that the old one was destroyed by the storm.

Now, I’m no expert in mayoral politics, but surely $50,000 has to be accounted for and not just used by the mayor at her own discretion like this?. She buys land – in her own name! – to set up a playground more or less only for her son, but the other kids can use it too.. The wind in Emma’s sails deflate as the town sides with the mayor, but she’s determined that something is still wrong – the mayor is still up to something.

To nobody’s great surprise, it turns out Sidney was on the Mayor’s side all along, just stringing Emma along for the public embarrassment.

In the meanwhile, Mary Margaret and David (Josh Dallas) carry on their illicit affair in the background and The Stranger (Eion Bailey) steals Henry’s book. I’m sure that’s all going to be very important later on.

Stuff I want to know:

Tainted Love

• Really, Mary Margaret? You’re fine with being “the other woman”? Isn’t David going to be leaving his wife and making the entire situation being a little less dirty?
• Where do all those skeleton keys go?
• What’s the deal with the stranger? Why is he there and what does he want?
• Why is Mr. Gold (Robert Carlyle) always offering to help Emma? What’s his endgame?

I’m not too energetic in the morning. I’ll just kinda sit there for a while and stare at the TV, so a half hour program is a perfect way to wake up and eat breakfast. I usually watch a DVD set I already own or just grab something from the library. This time I thought I’d take a look at what Youtube and Hulu have to offer.

What I’m going to do is go through both site’s “animated” categories and pick out a handful of promising shows to watch the first episode from.Then whatever two shows that grab me the most I’ll watch in their entirely.

• I’m going to try and keep it to series that are complete and that aren’t 100+ episodes long, but I may make exceptions.
• For this experiment I’m going to skip over the shows that I’ve seen completely or bits and pieces of. I will also avoid any show that’s part of a franchise that I’m already familiar with.
• Some of the series only have the dub, (English language voice cast) or sub (original Japanese dialogue with English subtitles) available. If a show has both available for the entire run then I’ll compare the two different voiceover tracks before continuing with the series.
• I’m only doing a light lookup of the series to avoid spoilers.

This should be a fun experiment. There are several older anime series that I have yet to see for one reason or another. And, with the recent Megaupload disaster, finding shows on file hosting and video streaming sites is becoming more and more difficult. I remember how frustrating it was trying to find Higurashi no naku koro ni in its entirety on YouTube. Having officially licensed channels, like FUNimation’s stream entire series is a hell of a lot more convenient than having the videos and download links deleted on you after you’re only half way done.

Now; let’s take a look at our candidates:

Yamanda’s First Time: B Gata H Kei

(Hulu Link)

Episodes: 12
Series: Complete
Language Track: Subtitled

Based off a comic strip, it tells the story of a high school girl needing to get laid. For the most part whenever girls are being sexual in anime it’s meant to be for either the male characters or male viewers sake. This could be interesting to see an example of a girl lusting for what she wants.

Chobits

(Hulu Link)

Episodes: 24
Series: Complete
Language Track: Dubbed and Subtitled.

Guy finds a thrown away robot girl. While I have heard of this before, the main reason for checking it out is the fact that a younger sibling of mine bought a Chobits doll from goodwill. This could be hilarious if Chobits turns out to have a lot of mature content.

House of Five Leaves

(Hulu Link)

Episodes: 13
Series: Complete
Language Track: Subtitled

The Mike Mignola-looking art style is enough of a reason for watching the pilot.

Slayers

(Hulu Link)

Episodes: 26
Series: Complete
Language Track: Dubbed and Subtitled

I never got this in my area when it first aired. It was recommended by a guy working the DVD section of Barnes and Noble. He made it sound like a fun fantasy adventure comedy.

Murder Princess

(Hulu Link)

Episodes: 6
Series: Complete
Language Track: Dubbed and Subtitled

With a name like that and with it being that short, why not give it a try?

Sgt. Frog

(Hulu Link)

Episodes: Over 300
Series: Ongoing
Language Track: More Dubbed then Subtitled

I had heard that this was rather hilarious and will try it even though it’s over 300 episodes long and not every one is available.

Canaan

(Hulu Link)

Episodes: 13
Series: Complete
Language Track: Doesn’t say

A near future story of  Assassins, terrorists, and junk.

Dokkoida?!

(Hulu Link)

Episodes: 12
Series: Complete
Language Track: Doesn’t say

Picked it just on the potential wackiness it could have.

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann

(Hulu Link)

Episodes: 27
Series: Complete
Language Track: Doesn’t say

Gainax’s giant robot anime from 2007. I think Sci-fi Channel aired it for a while. But I never got to it seeing as how it was like 1 episode every other week when the Daily Show was on. I know drills are involved and there’s a brother dynamic.

Spice and Wolf

(Hulu Link)

Episodes: 25
Series: Complete
Language Track: Dubbed and subtitled

A merchant finds a half wolf pagan goddess in his cart and travels around with her. he’s probably a spice merchant seeing as how she’s most likely the wolf part of the title.

In a week or so I’ll report back with reviews of the 1st episodes for these series.

I couldn’t tell you exactly what it was missing, just that it was missing something – that spark that made me anxious for the next issue the second I finished the final page.

When it comes to action, Winter Soldier delivers.

I was hoping I’d find a little of that magic in the new series Winter Soldier. Brubaker writes a great Bucky, and sometimes a fresh start is just what a comic needs to get back to its former glory. What I got was a comic that picked up right from where Bucky’s tales in Captain America ended. That’s not a bad thing, by any means – I have few bad things to say about any comic that features a machine gun wielding gorilla- just that it wasn’t necessarily what I was wishing for. Bucky and Black Widow still have fantastic chemistry, and the story introduced here looks to be pretty intriguing, but it’s less a Bucky-Cap comic and more a pure tale of Bucky on his own. And maybe that’s a good thing.

I wasn't kidding about the gorilla.

Winter Soldier doesn’t feel like a superhero book. It feels like a serious comic set in a world where the fantastic happens regularly. It offers a smart story that’s different from what the rest of the Marvel universe has to offer right now. Occasionally, the book loses a little of its energy, but for the most part, it’s a dark, action packed tale that’s totally different than what you’d get from an issue of Spider-Man or even Daredevil. The cliffhanger at the end is pretty darn exciting, and once the story really gets going, I think it’s going to be something pretty special.

Winter Soldier gives us something a little different from Butch Guice.

I’m not entirely sold on the style artist Butch Guice is using here, but it never fails to be interesting. At times, his art feels too stiff or too obviously photo-referenced, but at other times, his layouts are a delight to behold. There’s a sort of mix and match quality to his pages – even panels side by side look completely different – and it creates a really unique visual look that helps set the tone for the comic. Bettie Breitweiser‘s colors are a terrific match for his varying styles, and the color palette they work with gives the comic a little extra spy-story flavor.

Even if it lacks the sparkle Captain America had after the death of Steve Rodgers, Winter Soldier is a solid comic book. If you’re sick of the standard cape fare, or generally enjoy Brubaker’s work, it’s a comic that’s worth your time. I suspect that the artwork will be a bit polarizing, even for people who usually enjoy Butch Guice’s work, but if you’re a Bucky fan, it shouldn’t be too hard to adjust. Winter Soldier isn’t exactly what I wanted it to be, but it’s a good comic, and that’s what really matters. Bucky’s “death” and near-instant revival may have been silly, but I’m glad to have him back, especially with Brubaker at the helm.

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Jane Levy

Jane, who is best known for her role as Tessa Altman in Suburgatory, is the definition of an up-and-coming actress. Born in 1989, she’s just about to start making her first major steps into cinema and needs a vehicle to bring her further into the spotlight. While I’m not sure that The Evil Dead is the right vehicle, she could do far worse. At least she’s not doing an action movie opposite Taylor Lautner.

The story, in its current incarnation after the most recent re-write by Diablo Cody, will follow a group of five young friends who visit a remote cabin (this never ends well) where they discover the Necronomicon – the Book of the Dead. Naturally, as these things go, a mysterious evil demonic force is unleashed, possessing and killing them all one by one. The male lead and one of the other four characters will be Shiloh Fernandez, who I feel I’m seeing in casting news far too often nowadays.

Shot in New Zealand – using a helicopter for some scenes – the music video continues in the same vein as the last, bringing us her token performance of dancing, bouncing and seeming to relive scenes from the movie while playing.

It all kind of makes you wonder what she’s going to tackle next. If I were to give my opinion, it’d have to be either Star Trek or Indiana Jones; both of which have impressive musical scores to chose from and plenty of visuals that could be brought out to play with. Star Wars, of course, is another great option for the very same reason.

After being online for almost eight years, Facebook has finally taken the first step to becoming a publicly traded company and has filed to sell shares on the stock market. The ticker used for its shares is going to be FB.

While it’s still a giant in the online sphere, Facebook still only managed to pull in $4.39 per user during the last year. With almost 900 million users – and expecting to reach a billion this year – that’s not too bad, all things considered, but it’s still going to attract some criticism from the stockholders. Google manages to pull in more than $30 per user every year. Even Yahoo and AOL, two names that we’ve more or less shrugged off, are earning $7 and $10, respectively for every one of their users.

Also, the income isn’t very well distributed. Zynga, the creators of FarmVille and stealers of novel ideas everywhere, accounted for roughly 12% of Facebook’s revenue in 2011, with advertising accounting for almost all of the remainder.

Mark Zuckerberg owns 28% of Facebook, but also carries roughly 57% of the stock, giving him more or less total veto power.

The series, which has been described as a “high octane action drama”, follows “a group of characters struggling to survive and reunite with loved ones in a world where all forms of energy have mysteriously ceased to exist”. I’m not entirely sure what it means that energy has ceased to exist, but I’m guessing that we’re talking about a world that doesn’t contain electric energy in any way, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

I wonder if this means anything for the future of Alcatraz, Fringe or Person of Interest, all of which are ongoing series with J.J. as Executive producer.