Yeap! Malcolm was on the toob this week, and I couldn’t help myself but think “hot damn I’d look as good wearing that browncoat!”

Well folks, imagine my amazement when I discovered I could get a freaking amazing looking replica of that coat from a company right here in Canada!

I stumbled across the garment on over on Things From Another World (TFAW.com) and couldn’t help but wish I were a person of wealth, someone not only willing but capable of dropping 350 bucks on something so awesome - you have to admit, it is pretty awesome, eh? I know, right?! I love it!

In actuality, you can’t get one quite yet, and the one shown is only the current working prototype of the final product… but they promise that it will be as fantastic as shown, or perhaps even more shiny!

You can pre-order the coat if you must have it, and I am certain that there are some of you out there that will … and if you happen to read this and have one of your own, feel free to let us know just how awesome it really is - and pictures would be even better!

And who makes this Browncoat replica? A Canadian company out in the middle of nowhere - ever heard of a town called Mount Pearl? No? Perhaps you’ve heard of a Canadian province called Newfoundland? No? Well, let me tell you, the nicest people in the world are from Newfoundland, and it’s likely one of the most beautiful locations on this rock we live on… but I never ever expected the company to be located in Newfoundland.

The company is called AbbyShot Clothiers. They make [garment designs] “styled after clothing worn in movies, anime series, TV shows and computer games, yet completely wearable as high-end, durable, everyday apparel.” Check out their website, all of their designs are freakin’ amazing.

While I don’t see Mr. Reynolds’ Browncoat listed on their official website, I imagine it’ll eventually show up once it is available for purchase come December 16th - someone out there is going to be Malcolm Reynolds this Christmas, and I am jealous that this person is not me.

I’ve been flat on my back, in bed, with a good fever - the doctor said to stay in bed and sweat it out… that as long as my only symptom was fever, to just take acetaminophen and ibuprofen to keep the fever down when it gets high, and to rest… oh, and drink lots of liquids.

So yeah, I did that. I started feeling like poo on Monday near mid-day… and it is still attacking me. Good times folks, good times!

Well, here’s the list of links for you - I’m actually going to go and lie down again… stupid fever!

Stay healthy folks!

• Drunk vs Zombie
• Zombie Driver
• Why I Watch Dollhouse
• Contropussy
• Sierra’s Story
• Blood Energy Potion
• Pop-Up Lego Temple

Drunk vs Zombie

The same man behind Fear of the Living Dead, the zombie movie short I might be in for about 1 second, put out a new short - and it is another zombie short… but this one is short.

I really thought he did a good job of keeping the humour light, and overall it’s really well done… maybe the lighting was too bright in some spots - that’d be about the worst I could point out with this short.

No matter though, it’s good zombie fun.

Zombie Driver

Annnnnd keeping up with the zombies, there’s a new game out called Zombie Driver. Now, I gotta say, this looks to be a helluvalotta silly fun. You ride is cars with weapons mounted on the roof or hood, and you drive around a zombie infested city mowing down any zombies that get in your way. You are zooming around the cityscape saving the living from the undead, and you best hurry because it looks as though the zombies are out in big numbers.

How can you not like a game with a simple a premise as that? The game uses the old-school GTA-ish top-down view for driving action, and the game looks fantastic. Actually, I found the perspective to be more like GTA: Chinatown Wars on the Nintendo DS as far as visual perspective goes.

The game comes out next month, but they do have a video showing game play. I noticed there are power-up looking items on the screen, which I am guessing are used to heal and add new weapons to your car… or perhaps they offer new missions? I don’t know, but either way - this game looks to be zombie mayhem bliss!

I don’t know if you can get out of the car or not though… mind you, there are so many zombies it might be foolish to even attempt that!

Why I Watch Dollhouse

Here’s a campaign to get people watching Dollhouse. While I do understand why this show is not doing as well as I’d like to see it be doing, I don’t think it is because the show is weak… it just requires a viewer willing to invest time into the overall series’ story arc.

It’s not the type of show that will sit well with most people if you just pick up a show here and there, it really requires the viewer to sit down and watch every episode in order… and maybe even to think a little about it between shows.

This website really does a good job in pulling out the show’s themes - the little video they have is quite stunning and the music is wonderful.

And then they added a follow-up video for tonight’s broadcast of the show:

Sierra’s Story

This video is similar to the original as far as production value goes; it focuses on Sierra, the active that tonight’s show is supposedly focused on. Up and until now her story has been left cloudy, leaving us wondering how she ended up in the Dollhouse. This second video is just as great as the first one, and again the chosen music is perfect.

Contropussy

Okay, show of hands - who remembers the sex-craved Anya from Buffy the Vampire Slayer?

Well, the wonderful actress that played Anya, Emma Caulfield, is now working on a webcomic called Contropussy. I find the comic to be fun to read - I’ve plopped the site’s feed into my RSS reader, and I am excited to see each new piece show up when it does.

The comic is about a cat that leads a secret night-life, and the world she lives in is not exactly what one might expect.

Just a word of caution though; this series is meant for adults. The jokes and situations, and to an extent even the visual content, is not really for a younger audience. The cuteness of the cats might appeal to kids, but the content is just not for them… but having said that, for us grown-up folk, Contropussy is a fun read.

Blood Energy Potion

I received an email this week announcing that the folks behind the popular Mana Energy Potions have a new product out, the world’s first synthetic blood beverage.

I must say, the packaging alone is awesome… and as usual they have a lot of fun with their product. You need to check out the website itself, even if you do not intend on ordering any of their product - but I have a feeling you just might want to, the stuff looks too damned fun to miss out on.

Pop-Up Lego Temple

This video is crazy. Some guy, I am guessing he is Japanese, made a Lego model of a temple - but it is a pop-up model. When it is collapsed it looks like a Lego box in the store, but when you open it you watch the whole thing come together as it pops into life right before your eyes.

The video is great too, at the end it gives you several views of it opening and closing… this piece of work is truly spectacular!

I used to read all sorts of comics too. I used to read everything from Archie, Richie Rich, and Casper to Spiderman, X-Men, and Iron Man. I just enjoyed reading the books and checking out the artwork.

At some point I stopped reading them, I’m not sure at what age that was though. As I watched my younger brothers grow up and read comics, I often wondered if they read them much later in age than I did… seems to be I stopped somewhere around grade 7, but I cannot be certain - my brothers, though, were still reading them much later than that though… and sometimes I feel as though I missed out.

Well, I bought a few comics this summer, before I moved to our new house, even - wow, when did I order those books now? Let me check.

Hooo - okay, this surprises me a little because I just finished reading the first one today. Apparently I received Joss Whedon’s Fray back on August 14th… woowee!

It didn’t take me long to read the book, though - I only managed to find time to read the book now that I am out of work and have a bit of time on my hands. I read the entire thing in only a handful of sittings, to say it was a page turner would be putting it lightly. Fray could be a book that spurs on some more comic-reading goodness.

[ yes yes, spoilers are mild, if any … it’s okay to continue ]

For any readers that are not aware, Fray is a comic book that resides in the same universe as Buffy the Vampire Slayer. As with Buffy, Joss Whedon is the mind behind this work as well. The main character of this series is Melaka Fray, and she’s the Slayer.

Unlike the Slayers before her, Melaka does not understand the origin of her gift - her speed, strength, and uncanny rate of healing - but she does put it to the best use any 19 year old girl that is living on her own could, she’s become a damned good thief for hire.

Well, as I’ve been told by so many, Joss Whedon does it again with Fray. I was unsure how one could take the world of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, not bring back a single character, keep the history and lore behind the Slayers as story backbone, introduce all new characters and top it all off by having the entire story told in some distant future setting, and expect to have the reader accept all of this and still give a damn… that take balls.

And skill.

Yet, somehow, the people behind these books managed to pull that off without a hitch. The Slayer heritage is taken up again with Fray, and she’s about to discover there’s a whole different world out there - and that she has a purpose greater than she could have ever imagined.

If you’ve not read Fray, and you are a fan of Buffy, of Joss Whedon, or just into comic books or good story telling - heck, even if you don’t think comics are for you - I would have to say that I agree with all of the people out there that had urged me to check it out. It truly is great.

I love that Joss manages to bring in a whole new futuristic lingo through this series. He’s known for playing with language in his works, and his mastery of this playful skill enriches the worlds he creates. And true to form, the main attraction with this book is much like anything else Joss pens - the dialog in this book is fantastic.

But it’s not just about text in bubbles - the artwork, both pencil and ink, are just as stellar in this book. I know little about Karl Moline (pencil) and Andy Owens (ink), but after reading this book if I see anything else on the shelf headlining their artwork interests me, their name on the book will make picking it up so much easier.

These two are rock solid - one thing that always bugged me as a comic book reader when I was a kid was when faces on characters would be messed up in a single panel (or more)… it just totally would take you out of the book and ruin the experience as you flipped through the pages. These guys really cranked out a beautifully gritty series with Fray, they should be proud of their work in this series - these two guys made Joss look even better through the mastery of their own art forms… making Fray an absolute pleasure to read.

Sanctuary is one such show that I sat down and watched the first season of this past month. It turned out to be a surprisingly interesting show, although I was skeptical for a handful of episodes.

The show’s pitch is that the world is full of strange creatures, some humanoid, some not - they are labeled as abnormals, creatures that are outside of the describable and expected norms of this world… but they are real, they are out there… and many need help and protection.

Who’s the one providing this protection? A woman named Helen Magnus, following in her father’s footsteps, is taking on the task of providing these creatures a safe haven - a Sanctuary.

[ some mild spoilers after the jump, but nothing that would ruin the series ]

And there is an actual sanctuary… well, several really; but Helen Magnus seems to be the woman in charge. She also seems to be connected with the who’s who of the world as well. No matter where their work takes them Helen knows people that may surprise you; it certainly surprised me, at times… at least at first.

You see, this world they’ve created in Sanctuary really requires a leap when it comes to checking your disbeliefs at the door. You’ve got everything in this show, the undead, mutants, faerie creatures, werewolves, witches, lizardmen, mermaids, you name it… in this world all of these exist - which means pretty much anything can happen and anything goes.

This alone is both a strength and a hindrance to the show. They try to present the show a little too serious at times, but this world they’ve created can seem rather silly - they never find a perfect balance. If the show loosened up a little, without going all campy mind you, I think the series would be stronger overall.

There’s another aspect of the show that kinda bugs me, and it’s all got to do with the series’ main character, Helen Magnus. Whenever you read any synopsis of the show by the series’ creators or the show’s network, they always push the aspect that Helen Magnus is this amazingly beautiful woman. But the way the character is portrayed in the show in comparison to how she is described by other characters and in series synopses, you expect more of a young runway model bombshell - it just feels weird at times.

And I think the reason why she, the character, is described this way is that the woman that plays Helen Magnus is also the show’s producer - coincidence? Doubt it.

The woman that plays Helen Magnus is a stunning woman though. I am sure fans of hers know Amanda Tapping better as Colonel Samantha Carter in the Stargate television series. She’s been playing that gig now for 12 years… I am sure it must be a breath of fresh air for her to take on a new role in an different series.

And despite me be unsure about the show as the episodes rolled by, in the end I was able to get into the show and enjoy it. It’s a pretty fun watch, despite some of the strange decisions they made during the first season, but the show does get its legs around the half-way mark. And yeah, the show is back for a second season too; it started up again October 9th. So if you have the time to rip through an entire season you can still catch up before this season ends - I know I’ll be tuning in.

… and sure, I might be out of work right now, but still - I need a break from full-time job hunting!

One would think it is more relaxing than it actually is - I won’t go through was a day is like for a person looking for work, it’s mostly boring, and these days it is mostly done online…

… which, funny enough, is where I find some of the most entertaining things in this world! Here’s this week’s links of goodie-goodness - enjoy!

• Take a Ride on the AT-AT School Bus
• Monkey Island 2 in 3D using Cryengine
• Star Wars: Uncut - Trailer
• LARPing in Google Street View

Take a Ride on the AT-AT School Bus

This one really speaks to me. My son started school this year, and although we live just far enough from the school that we can opt-in for him to ride the school bus we decided we’d drive him in this year.

Man, tell you what - if his school bus was a freakin’ AT-AT? He’d be on the bus folks! That’d be total bad-assery right there!

I betcha no cars would pass an AT-AT bus when the lights are flashing… or PEW-PEW! PEW-PEW!

I betcha all seats in an AT-AT bus are great seats, not just the ones in the back!

I betcha nobody falls asleep on the ride home and misses their stop on an AT-AT bus!

I betcha all kids get excited about lame-ass field trips when you get to go on an AT-AT bus!

I betcha you bet that I like the idea of AT-AT buses!

Monkey Island 2 in 3D using Cryengine

It’s been a loong long while since I have played any Monkey Island titles - but wow, does this unofficial port of old the Monkey Island 2 world into the new Cryengine sandbox look damned good!

I read the little blurb next to the video…  camera projection techniques and all, I have no idea what that means - but if the results of all this 3D trickery are what I see in this video, let me tell you - Karnatos wants him some Monkey Island 2 in Cryengine now.

I have no idea if the creators intend on actually implementing the entire game, of it is simply a demo of what they can do, but I would love to get my hands on this and walk around for myself… it looks so damn good!

Star Wars: Uncut - Trailer

I am not sure if I’ve mentioned this endeavour before, or not - but Star Wars: Uncut is going to kick all sorts of ass-flavours.

The whole thing works like this: people sign up for a 15-minute time slice in the original Star Wars release (A New Hope). The 15 seconds of the original movie must be re-shot any way you envision, you make it 15 seconds, upload it to the Star Wars: Uncut website and hope to have your clip make it into the final release of the re-made movie.

The end result will be different cinematography styles, ranging from traditional animation, low budget props and acting, to crazy-wacky-weirdo-yet-hilarious shenanigans that Star Wars fans have come up with.

Well, not all the segments have been spoken for, so the movie is not done yet - but they have enough content uploaded now to be able to create a great trailer for the movie-endeavour.

Like I said - awesome idea! This will kick all sorts of ass-flavours!

LARPing in Google Street View

Just as recent as Wednesday I discovered that Ottawa, where I live, is not viewable in Google Street View. I’ve just started zooming around to see what there is to see, but so far I’ve not encountered anything is Hooowah-Damn-Cool as this.

These guys either staged themselves LARPing as the Google Street View van/cars/bike drove by, or it was by total fluke - either way, very funny and cool at the same time.

Sure its Geeky, but then again, Street View itself is very geeky - so it fits perfectly!

I remember seeing commercials for this movie, and it looked interesting enough; people in our current day have special powers, force-like powers - I figured it’d be pretty damned cool.

And overall it is a pretty cool looking movie. The ideas behind people’s powers are pretty sharp, the effects for the powers are pretty cool, the action scenes are quite good… but there was something missing that kept the movie from being fantastic, instead it was just good entertainment.

So what’s the movie about overall? Well, the story takes place in a version of our world where people have these crazy powers; some sense the future, some have telekinetic powers and move things, some can force thoughts onto others, some can screech like a banshee at supersonic levels, and others can sniff things and sense where you’ve been… yeah, they pick things up and smell them. Yeah, exactly - kinda creepy.

[ I keep the spoilers down to a minimum, really - it’s pretty safe to continue ]

So our main character is Nick. He finds himself in a bind when he is visited by The Division. He’s been trying to avoid them; they are trouble for his kind, you see Nick is a Mover… he can move things telekinetically. The Division likes to control the ones with special powers, and Nick’s been on the run for some time - only, The Division is not there looking for him, they are looking for someone else, a girl.

From there the story moves on to include other characters with different special abilities, all of them strange but cool. But as cool as everything was, the story did not captivate me as much as I was hoping it would. I think I went in expecting a smarter movie, but the way the movie wrapped itself up in the last 30 minutes was not all that exciting to me.

I don’t know what I was expecting, mind you… I just expected a better thought-out ending I guess. In the end it’s a story that’s been told before - girl’s in trouble, how do we save the girl, can we save the girl, etc. - I was just hoping for more something, I dunno what; I guess that’s why I don’t make movies, right?

But Push was still a fun movie to watch. The characters all have their little quirks, the movie looked great, the lore was pretty well defined… you understood what each type of power was and what it could do, and there’s some great action sequences and cool effects to keep you watching.

Just don’t expect the movie to blow you away - like I said, Push is good entertainment, it’s just not a fantastic movie.

When I do read a book I always take the time to get all the way through it, I can’t stand to leave a story unfinished; as a result I buy books to read with the high hopes that the book is a good fun read.

My most recent purchase was Amber Benson’s latest novel series called Death’s Daughter; a story about a young woman that just happens to be the daughter of Death himself… man, that’s gotta be a rough gig being the offspring of someone like Death.

Why was I looking forward to reading this particular book? Well, Amber Benson is not only known for her writing, she also played Tara in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I heard about Amber’s book coming out about 10 months ago, just around Christmas time if memory serves. I figured it’d be worth checking out this talented woman’s writing.

I pre-ordered this book on Amazon well before it was released and received at the end of February - yeah, it took me 7 months to read a single book, I told you I was a slow reader!

I have to admit, I really had a hard time reading this book at points, which definitely caused the time to get through the book to be longer than it ought to have been. Normally I can finish up a 350 page book in a couple months, but I was reading Death’s Daughter in fits and starts, sometimes simply out of stubbornness alone. I am glad I stuck with the book in the end though, it’s actually a decent story overall, I just did not dig the main character that much… or perhaps it was a combination of that and the writing style? Not sure.

What was wrong with it? Well, the book is told from the Calliope’s perspective, and as narrator she kept going on and on about shopping, clothes, how she looked… and I could care less about that crap - it often felt like word-filler to me. Some might argue that it defined her character more, but I don’t buy it; perhaps I am the wrong audience, which is my guess… it sometimes felt that this book was targeted for girls in their late teens.

As I said, though - overall the book was okay, but I doubt I will be reading the second book in the series when it comes out. Now, if you have a daughter in her mid-late teens, she very well might enjoy this book - there’s nothing in there that I would consider harmful or risqué for a girl that age… and like I said, the overall story is satisfying, I just had difficulties getting past reading about the crap I could givadamn about.