It's a good time to be a comic book fan...
Though some still maintain these are a hair away from "fan art," these are rumored to be how Captain America and Thor will look on the big screen. Cap looks good, I think, blending the "riding leathers" look from the X-Men with his costume from "The Ultimates." I will be completely surprised if Cap ever actually takes something out of those belt-pouches (has any comic book character ever pulled something from any of those military pouches that started sprouting on costumes like mushrooms?) Thor, while pretty cool-looking, needs some work, I think. Unless they have some sequence where he (or maybe SHIELD) makes his outfit for him, the lower part of the uniform looks a bit off, especially the footwear. I'm no expert on Norse mythology, but those are some treads on them thar boots that even Batman would be embarrassed to have (and he kind of kicked off the whole combat-boot trend in superheroes, I think). However, if we assume that his costume is a modern-day makeover by Thor himself or some other agency, some really good insulated boots might make sense, especially if you're tossing lightning around.
And we got zombies. Namely a look at the zombies from AMC's adaptation of "The Walking Dead." There's also a behind the scenes video with Frank Darabont (you get a look at the "zombie wardrobe" as well). The makeup looks well done, and if they follow the comic, then the plot is going to carry the series no matter what the zombies look like. The story rightly concentrates on the characters, which makes you care what happens to them and hope that they can somehow win through the nightmare and come out the other side. The one thing it might suffer from, ratings-wise, was something that plagued Battlestar Galactica's reboot: Battle fatigue. Very little "happy" goes on in "The Walking Dead," at least not in the classic TV show sense. Much like BSG, things often go from bad to worse, and any positive experience is usually short-lived. I hope it doesn't negatively impact the ratings, 'cause I can't wait for a nice, long, detailed zombie apocalypse to watch and only experience vicariously. :)
Thundercats are coming back to television. When I was a kid, I thought this cartoon was incredibly cool, and it still holds fond memories for some of the concepts they threw at my pre-adolescent brain. The biggest one was, "Holy Cap'n Crunch! That's our Earth, even though they never say it, and it's after something happened to it like in 'Thundarr the Barbarian!'" This was closely followed by the fact that Cheetara, the female speedster of the group, was practically nekkid before she got her uniform later in the pilot episode. The bad guy was a mummy, and mummies are always awesome. His minions included what looked like an orc and a gnoll, which fit my Basic D&D-lovin' self to a T. One of the cat-guys had nunchucks. A dead cat-guy had a halfway decent Obi-Wan Kenobi act going with the heroic lead. And the theme song rocked, especially with the synthesized "R-R-R-OWrrrr" at the end.
Snarf, however, could go join Orko in the pile of characters that made my brain hurt. I think they were put in to somehow ensnare my demographic into watching the program, but they had me at "cat-guy with awesome magic sword fights a mummy." I usually loathed every "cute" or "funny" character every cartoon added to an otherwise kick-butt lineup of hero-types. They do give me pop culture references to use in a negative connotation, so I suppose that's something I can salvage. Snarf-snar--NO!
Before I get to the linkdump, here's something we just tried for a small get-together that really worked out well for a highly modifiable dessert: Ice Cream Cake. No, not that kind. Basically, you're adding a pint of ice cream to the batter before you bake it (and modifying the ingredients that go in with the mix). We did a pineapple flavored mix with strawberry ice cream, and then Cristi whipped up an on-the-fly glaze made of powdered sugar, water, and strawberry preserves. Next, we think we'd like to try a white or yellow cake with some toffee-based ice cream and make some kind of frosting from melted toffee chips. The possibilities are endless, and it's an excuse to buy one of those novelty bundt cake pans from the specialty kitchen stores (we have the ones shaped like a rose, a 'fall bounty' arrangement, and a football stadium, among others).
- Though I won't be at E3, Valve, the makers of the upcoming "Portal 2," canceled an event at the convention they had planned. However, the way they canceled it was kind of amusing, especially if you read it in GLaDOS' voice.
- From the "things that belong in a Lovecraft story" comes this news item: A Mayfly hatching so big it could be seen on Doppler radar.
- This is an interesting twist on the old "cave snake" games: Touch the Bubbles 3 is a game of mousing deftness, where you must pop all of the spheres without touching the walls.
- To accompany this week's "Walking Dead" news, here's a clever bullet-ridden ad for a Swedish horror film festival.
- Ben Kingsley's sense of humor is epic as he makes an audition tape for 'Transformers 3', specifically to replace Megan Fox.
- I've never played any of the Pokemon video games, but this made me laugh.
- Even if I never play the video game, it's nice to see Spider-Man 2099 still lives on (his was the only 2099 book I looked forward to, and I still think he's pretty cool).
- While I wasn't looking, the EepyBird guys went and made a rocket-car that runs on Diet Coke and Mentos.
- From ye olden dayes of the Worlde Wide Webbe comes what became of the 'Star Wars' kid.
- We sign off with a puzzle game, King of Shapes. First, build a structure to get a shape above a height requirement, then remove parts of it to get the shape(s) into the proper basins.