A tale of two tablets...
I never thought we'd have a tablet anything in our house until they started giving them away free with boxes of cereal, but thanks to a loaner iPad from Cristi's job, we had one for a few weeks. On the one hand, she and Josh loved it. On the other hand, only Josh would think our finances could take the hit from buying one. Our nearly-2-year-old fell in love with "Planet Fish," a game where you used a submarine to shoot fish-collecting bubbles at various kinds of finny targets. Thankfully (and I'd call this a feature), it being a "lite" version of the game, it could only be played for so much time per day, the screen announcing "game over for now" being a cue that Josh could accept. For Cristi, it was "Coins vs. Zombies" a lot of the time, along with a crane game and those "bulldozer" arcade games where you drop tokens in front of a moving shovel in the hopes your token will push more into the "you won free tokens" chute. But lest you think she's all about games, she found it an excellent eBook reader, downloading books from iTunes as well as Amazon. Her laptop saw little use when this device was present, and like Frosty the Snowman, it had to hurry on its way to be wiped and given to someone else (Cristi's position allowed for iPad training, but no actual iPad). About her only complaint was that it wouldn't fit in her (rather large) purse/handbag, and it would be in danger of being broken if allowed to stick out. After she tried some more educational things with Josh and discovered that even reading for work was a pleasure on such a device, she convinced me to get a color Nook (refurbished) for about $150, which I'll probably root 5 minutes after it arrives. Then I have to comfort the devices we own that ar running a desktop OS that they're not about to be kicked to the curb. :)
Most readers know I dig the "Supernatural" TV show, though I didn't know it's tendency towards the strange extended to life on the set. The show's two principal actors are putting out the word that they need more ducks. For what, you might reasonably ask? For their "duck pond," of course. The ducks will eventually be put to some kind of charitable use, and it may give us some data about collectibles that can be listed as "shared water with feet of celebrity" and the value thereof.
When Doctor Who finally returns to us later this month, it'll be with an episode called "Let's Kill Hitler." If you've not seen any of the first half of this year's Who, you can still turn down the volume and watch this prequel trailer for a close-up look at the TARDIS control consoles. At least according to this Doctor Who wiki, this will be Hitler's first appearance in the show, other than being mentioned by name. I suppose if we got Churchill, that only makes sense. If the show could get a little larger budget, maybe we could get the Doctor to highlight other historical leaders with a few editorial flourishes. If not, that poster should be the basis for whatever film comes out after "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter."
Speaking of supernatural beasties, it's with great disappointment that I report the true losses of Disney putting the kibosh on producing a "Lone Ranger" movie recently: It would have had werewolves in it. That may seem loopy at first, but hang on a sec. Given the fact that a cowboy has been out firing silver bullets for this long and hasn't gone up against some sort of fanged creature seems rather a stretch, doesn't it? Also, I have to say that more people I know are fans of the "weird west." Could a film about the Lone Ranger be played straight? Probably, but I don't think westerns pack 'em in the way they used to, unless you've managed to hit the writing, acting, and cinematography notes just right. I also barely remember seeing the old "Legend of the Lone Ranger" movie as a wee shaver, and that was after years of watching Clayton Moore every morning on a TV station out of St. Louis. The only two scenes I can recall are the ones where LR is shooting a silver bullet for the first time with his arm in a sling, followed by a scene where Tonto is about to be hanged and a bullet from the LR's guns shatter the lever on the gallows before it can be pulled. That's it. Now if it had contained werewolves... :)
Perhaps my Lone Ranger lament has more to do with not getting any "Dark Tower" programs/movies, at least not in the near future. I wonder how hard it would be to convince the scriptwriters to retool it and make an "Adventures of Brisco County, Jr." movie? Ah, well. I have more work to do on the next installment of "Epic Campain," and I'm sure everyone would like me to get that done ASAP, so I'll turn you over to these items of (I hope) amusement:
- The point of this clip is to enjoy the cat being mesmerized by a cello, but I find myself wondering where they're selling these artsy-lookin' cellos.
- Behold the TARDIS corset. You may begin making your own "bigger on the inside than it is on the outside" jokes now.
- Some sleuths have discovered a missing chapter from the "Game of Thrones" series of novels and have posted it for all to enjoy.
- I thought I'd seen most of Eddie Izzard's work, but I hadn't thought to ever see him try to buy a cow by speaking Old English.
- So a guy in Texas bites a woman's neck and then claims it's because he's a 500-year-old vampire. He doesn't look a day over 250 to me, but that could just be the effect of the ear piercings.
- It looks like it might be a genuine uprising as yet another cat reveals it can walk on two legs.
- This malware program isn't all that prevalent and you'd have to visit an infected site with your Android phone, but it answers calls for you, logs data, and probably sides with the pigs in "Angry Birds."
- Think of Biogems as a turn-based combat version of "Bejeweled." With cute sci-fi animals for avatars.
- Unfortunately, you have to click "next" to see all eight, but these movie cliche posters are pretty clever.
- This almost sounds like a great adventure hook for your next Gamma World campaign: A curator at the National Gallery has several boxes marked "WW3" to protect whatever works he decides should go in them, should the worst ever happen.
- Adam Lewis is a visual effects artist, and his latest work caught my eye because the first item in his (potentially spooky, if you scroll down far enough) current works is the G-Man from the "Half Life" games.
- I'm told I need to start watching the Clone Wars TV show, and I have to admit, Season 4 looks pretty good.
- The trailer for Mass Effect 3 doesn't excite me much, though, as it really reveals nothing we haven't really seen before (combat) other than (1) there will be grenades and (2) Shepard will be back to fighting Cerberus.
- Here's a load of photos from the set of "The Avengers" with Captain America's "modern" suit (which I still say needs a chin guard or something) and a gizmo that could be a hint about the villain(s) in the movie.
- Wonderputt is a delightfully fun mini-golf game in a... unique environment loaded with little animated surprises. Fore!