DONKUMENTARY

This looks great!!! Click on the poster for more details. And remember: Don't Get Chumpatized.

Click here for a similar documentary about a man trying to conquer Missile Command (from an earlier posting).

Dramatic Look

FIRST NAME: MISTER, MIDDLE NAME: PERIOD, LAST NAME: T

ROCKY ACTION FIGURES

Oh man, where to begin...I took my oldest son to Toys 'R Us about 3 months ago and found the most pitiful "action" figure ever produced. It's Adrian Balboa. Fearing that the toy would be snatched up immediately by all the kids, I snapped this crappy pic with my cel-phone:

So now this weekend I found myself going back to T.R.U. so I thought I'd bring my camera just in case it was still there. For some reason, it was. Here:

She looks like she's smuggling a meat-truck inside her coat. The picture of Adrian on the packaging looks like she's saying "Fuck I look like a great big huge pile of crap." She's absolutely right. I feel sorry for Talia Shire.

Closer up inspection shows of the quality materials that were used in producing this quality action figure. I should go and buy this just so I can undress her and see what she's wearing underneath this! I bet it's sexy. Adrian was really sexy.

There's a ton of figures from the movie there as well and I'm not lying; they all looked like a lot of care, time, money and pride went into the making of these action figures. I didn't take any pictures of the rest so after about 16 hours worth of googlin' I tracked these bad-boy jpgs down. I'm not kidding but there's probably about 30 figures to collect. According to one website's description of the toys: "Jakks Pacific produced this fantastic line of 6" inch Rocky action figures. Each figure comes with character specific accessories and each figure is fully poseable. Collect them all."Here's just some:

From here he doesn't look too bad.

Before a big fight, Rocky listens to a used car-salesperson talk about a
pyramid opportunity that Rocky could get in on. Rocky seriously considers it.

Kids need a change of adventure when it comes to playing Rocky.
The 'Stars & Stripes' shorts just aint enough. Here's a limited edition
collectors' item. They only made 1800 of these Cave-man Rocky!
They're currently goingon Ebay's "buy it now" for $45,000.

Ah. The great Spider Rico! I love the photo of Spider on the packaging.
It looks like a forensics' photo where the toy makers photoshopped
out the blood-stained hotel room bed and rotated the picture 90 degrees.

What line of boxing movie toys isn't complete
without the charismatic ringside announcer?! Kids
love pretending to talk like Brent Museberger.

Kids demanded it and the toy-makers listened! It's the
"Jabba-the-Hut-of-Rocky" action figure. This would
be the first character I'd pick if my mom said,
"Okay, Johnny, you can only pick one..."
"Can I please have two?"
"No, just one dear. They're expensive."
"Okay...I'll take a Tony Gazzo."
His face really does say it all.
"OOOO That ROCKY! I'ma gonna killa him if I don't git me green!"

This figure is proving to be very popular
with little lesbian boys and girls.

Very large calves.
Speaking of large calves:

no comment

Thunderlips. It actually looks like Hulk Hogan.
Jakks, the toy-makers probably saved a lot of money
by just taking old Hulk Hogan action figures, ripping off the
heads and attaching them to their Rocky doll's body.

Children find endless fun with the
removable sweat-stained jock accessory.

If only they put the little commemorative plate thingy up by
his chest then it would look like a mug-shot. Paulie, in my
opinion would be the funnest figure to play with. There's
just soooo many role-play opportunities with a toy like Paulie.

Referee Lou Fillipo actually doubles for the
"Nuclear Wasteland George Bush" action figure!

Mick! MICK!!! So much geezer fun. Especially when Jakks
considered adding an "action stool" to heighten every
child's active imagination.

Phew! Thanks for hanging in there! Finally, while in line to buy my son a couple of Ben 10 toys, I saw these in the check-out line:

I, ROBOT BENCHES

I was walking along Columbia Street in New Westminster, BC today when I happened upon these street benches which feature the 3 Laws of Robotics (sorry for the low-res camera phone pics):


The city of New Westminister was used quite extensively for the shooting of the I, Robot movie. I'm not sure if these benches were props for the film or if the city had the plaques made up after the shooting as a "memorial" thingy.

The Horrors She Is The New Thing

Here's one of the greatest music videos of all time. This one's up there with QOTSA's Go With The Flow. I love this band but have to admit, this isn't one of their greater songs to release as a single.

Brule's Rules - Leaves

Brule's Rules - Fire

Brule's Rules - Milk

CARTS OF DARKNESS

My friend Murray Siple's trailer for his upcoming doc "Carts of Darkness." I can't wait to see the full-length. Go toMurray's website to see his other work. In his video link there's the original 5 minute original short of Carts of Darkness; a giant on its own.

A THOUGHT ABOUT SHARING MUSIC

When I was a damn teenager, me and my friends were always heading to downtown Toronto to our favourite record store (The Record Peddler) to pick up the latest great music. We'd come home, listen and record our purchases to tape and then swap goods. Jesus & Mary Chain, New Order, New Model Army, The Smiths, Echo & The Bunnymen etc. Although we never paid money for the collective borrowed records (which we would all tape) we never considered it piracy or that we were getting the music for free. It was just considered sharing and I don't ever recall hearing about the record companies freaking out about this.

I'm not really in touch with this DRM music thing and the record industry's beef with file-sharing and bit torrents and what not but WTF? In the 90's, half (if not more) of the CD's I purchased were bought used from various shops. Zulu Records on 4th had the best selection. The record industry (as far as I know) didn't cry rivers over the fact that little independent stores like Zulu were making money off of selling used CD's or that I was reselling some CD's and making some money for myself and the record labels and musicians weren't making a cent. I know people who never bought new CD's, buying only used so if the industry is up in arms about people getting music for free, then where were their complaints with the used CD biz? Is the record industry really taking a hit from PTP file-sharing? If so, haven't they been taking this hit since the beginning?

Whether it's borrowing an album or two from a friend, or taping records for friends is no different than someone uploading a whole wack of music onto a hard-drive and having a friend copy it over to his computer; it's all sharing. I presume that the taping of a record was considered "piracy" back in the day and considered "illegal" but the issue I'm yammering on and on and on about is that the industry wasn't really making a fuss over that as far as I'm aware so why are they now? I am probably missing some part of a bigger picture. Me is an dummy after all.

STREET VIEW: HOW IT WAS DONE

My previous post mentioned that I had actually driven behind a van with cameras mounted on its roof. The company's name had something to do with mapping so I assumed that it had something to do with Google Maps. I was wrong (unless it was another cmpany hired to do the job) as this is the tech and vehicle behind the Street View mapping system...I tell you. This looks sooooo much cooler than the mini-van and camera system I had seen.



Here's more information about it: CLICK HERE.

GOOGLE MAPS' STREET VIEW

If you haven't gone to Google Maps and played with the new "Street View" mode then do so now! About 4 months ago, while driving along Marine Drive in Vancouver, I found myself behind a van with 8 cameras mounted on its roof. I've been wracking my brain trying to recall where the van was from and the company name (wasn't Google) but I did think to myself that it was probably for this exact purpose.

DEER MAN OF DARK WOODS

Deer Man of Dark Woods is a skateboarder for The Barrier Kult and he's the featured skater in the most recent issue of Color Magazine.

Click on the above image of Deer Man of Dark Woods for the Google video of their first skate video. Here's DMODW's deck for Heroin Skateboards with the designer French. Below is the full line of BAKU boards.

ALL HAIL BAKU!

STAR WARS: CLONE WARS

Here's the link to the new CGI Star Wars television series "Clone Wars." Produced by my friend Sarah Wall and directed by another pal George Samilski! Congratulations you guys, good jorb.

MICHAEL PAULUS' CARTOON SKELETONS

Portland, Oregon (I think!?) area artist, Michael Paulus writes, "I decided to take a select few of these popular characters and render their skeletal systems as I imagine they might resemble if one truly had eye sockets half the size of its head, or fingerless-hands, or feet comprising 60% of its body mass." Check out the other 20 awesome renderings of his awesome renderings here!

Dr. Steve Brule on Fruits and Vegtables

STORM HAWKS

The wait is almost over. The highly anticipated pilot to Nerd Corps' latest CGI series Storm Hawks is here. This Friday, May 25th at 7:30 on the Cartoon Network be sure to tune in! I've had the pleasure of working on some of this and it is really well done. While watching some of the initial footage I kept shaking my head with awe. The art direction, the animation, the effects and the direction is awesome. The scripts are very good too and don't take themselves too seriously. They're quite a lot of fun. The "Supreme Commander" of Nerd Corps Ace Fipke (who is also the creator of Storm Hawks) once told me, " I don't want my show to take itself too seriously. I want my show to be fun. We're making cartoons here; kids can tell when the makers of the shows are having fun or not." Check out their new site (launched today) at Stormhawks.com
and see what I'm predicting to be one of the hottest properties around.

THE ART OF THOMAS ALLEN

This guy's work is pretty cool. He takes the cover art of various old pulp fiction books and kinda brings them to life. Click on the picture for more examples of his work.

Sumotori Dreams

I haven't laughed so hard in such a long time!!!