BatZilla!

 Day 13 of GOvember!

It's the birthday of a friend who happens to be a big Batman fan, so I thought I'd scam some pics from the net featuring he and Godzilla. Here we go...

 

 

This meeting isn't as farfetched as it seems. That last picture is from an actual comic book. (Anyone want to grab me a copy?) Furthermore, this video explains the history of how this crossover may have happened IF the fates hadn't intervened.

Ah well, we can still hope.

Any chess players out there? Back in Final Wars time, they released a sextet of figures representing chessmen. Unfortunately, there was no way I was going to try and find 16 Minilla/Minya for pawns.

This Derpy-faced Godzilla mask is actually worth a few bucks on the open market. Mine isn't in pristine condition and I do NOT recommend wearing it. Visibility is non-existent.

That was suffocating!

Happy BatDay, Ed!

Check, mate!

En route back from my Car event yesterday, we popped into a warehouse-style toy store and bought a bunch of stuff, including this for May the 4th Be with you Day. I found a Chess Set discounted from 5800 to 1280 yen.

It includes characters from both the Dark Side and the Light Side of the Force, appropriately using Storm Troopers and Clone Troopers for the pawns.

Here are the rest of the Dark Siders. As the King, rightly so is Darth Vader.

There aren't a lot of nasty Dark Side ladies, so rather than call Kylo Ren a Queen, let's refer to him as second in command.

As Knights, we have the father-son team of Jango and Boba Fett.

The Bishops are General Hux and Captain Phasma.

I love the choice of Rooks. Darth Maul and General Grievous.

The Light Siders are headed up by Luke Skywalker as King and his daughter(?) Rey as Queen (Princess?).

I suppose Luke's sister who is formally a Princess never graduated to the rank of Queen so Leia is relegated to the role of Bishop along with former Stormtrooper, Finn.

The Knights are well chosen with Han Solo and Chewbacca flanking everyone with their fancy "L move". 

Obviously, R2-D2 and BB8 are chosen as Rooks due to their tendency to move in a straight line.

Here is what the board looks like. I'm certain once a game is in progress, it will get very crowded in the center, especially if Chewbacca faces off against Grievous.

I haven't played in years and for decades prior to that when I was on our High School's chess team, though I was never a top-six player, I was ranked about 10th. I'll keep this set in my car and if anyone is ever up for a game, I'll gladly match my Force against yours!

Poseable Heads!

Just a quick post tonight.
I found these 3 oxymoronically named Little Big Heads a few weeks back and now I want them all!

Dracula. I never knew he was a flasher, except when he's flashing those pearly whites.

The Wolfman. One of the finer details on this figure is that his foot is caught in a bear trap.

The Mummy. Nice looking figure, hard to see from this angle but he is standing on a scroll.

Here is the entirety of Series One. The only one I really want is The Creature from the Black Lagoon but I would not hesitate to pick up any of the others.

As Svengoolie tells it, there is a Series 2 featuring The Phantom of the Opera, The Mole People, and another Gillman from The Creature Walks Among Us.



Looking at these, I thought that these would make a great Chess set. If one hasn't already been produced, I'd propose Frankenstein's Monster and his Bride as the King and Queen, Count Dracula as the Bishops, The Creature as the Knights, The Mummy as the Rooks and that would leave The Wolfman as the Pawns.

One side could be monochrome with the Black and White characters facing off against their Colourized opponents. Does anyone else have any other suggestions?

Rats and Other Pesky Rodents.

Back in my high school Chess Club days, whenever something went awry, one was wont to utter, "Rats!" and that was shortly followed up with "...and other pesky rodents" by a fellow chessophile. I can't recall why, that's just the way we rolled in the Chess club. There's a reason were the #1 team in Canada for two years running, "Don't Mess with CPSS Chess!"

 

Today's Pixar pic is from レミRatatouilleーのおいしいレストラン (Remi's delicious restaurant) which others may recognize as Ratatouille (which according to the spell-check, I got correct the first time!) A handful of drinking buddies went out on the piss one night with the intention of seeing a violent shoot-em-up thriller but whatever we had planned to see was ill-timed so we opted for the rodent-fest instead. I probably enjoyed it more than my posse, but we all exited satisfied.

I've been going on lately about Japan's dubbing of all recent animated features into Japanese and not offering a show in English. This is a fairly recent phenomenon, for I recall seeing Mr. Incredible in English in Sendai. On the other hand, if the dubbing is as good as the job done in this trailer, then my fears are assuaged and I'll stop harping on the subject.



Speaking of Rats, John Ratzenberger has had a voice part in all of Pixar's feature films made to date. His roles include:
* Hamm the Piggy Bank in Toy Story (1995), Toy Story 2 (1999) and Toy Story 3 (2010)
* P.T. Flea, the Circus Ring Leader in A Bug's Life (1998)
* The Abominable Snowman in Monsters, Inc. (2001)
* The school of Moonfish in Finding Nemo (2003)
* The Underminer in The Incredibles (2004)
* Mack the truck in Cars (2006) and Cars 2 (2011)
* Mustafa the Waiter in Ratatouille (2007)
* John in WALL-E (2008)
* Tom the construction worker in Up (2009)

I wonder if they use the same Japanese guy to do all his roles?

Surprisingly, I only have one item from the movie, a little phone strap that I picked up for a buck or two a while back. Cute, ain't it, for a flea ridden chef, that is?

If you dig into my profile, you'll see that I've added a ton of blogs that I follow. I also need to start raking in the cash, so I've added a little Amazon doohickey that is bound to get me rich beyond my wildest dreams! So anytime you buy anything through that link, you'll be helping a poor blogger pay for all his obsessions! (I'm still working out the linkages, so be patient.)

Sweet 17!

(X3) Today, I celebrate the third anniversary of my 17th birthday! (Proof attached.) When I was home in October, I found a briefcase full of photos and stuff and since it's my party and I'll scry if I want to, here's a look back to some memorabilia from days gone by.








25 years ago when I was 13 kg lighter and a struggling Social Worker by day and struggling actor by night, I had an inept agent who got me next to no work. It couldn't have been because of my profile, because...well I'll let the photos speak for themselves:





























I promised a while back that if I ever found it, I'd post the picture of Fraggle Rock I had. Much to my chagrin it was not signed as I'd misremembered.










High school buddy, Phil, sent me this photo earlier and here it is again in all its faded uncropped glory!










I won tickets to the third Star Trek movie premiere and although it was an odd-numbered one, it was still pretty good. There was a costume party afterwards and I put on a bathrobe, hung a fish from my ear and went as Arthur Dent. Needless to say no one figured it out except for a Dale Arden-clone with whom I fell in love.






My all time favourite movie is King Kong and I must say I have a soft spot for the Creature as well.










I don't care what anyone else says, I liked Yellowbeard!











Don't tell Mokugohan because this will be one of his Christmas presents today and the others are for his wife and daughter. (You'll have to figure out what goes to whom.) The GeGeGe pic is from a calendar of a dozen different anime that I'm using as wrapping paper.



























If there really were a Santa Claus, this gal who I met at a Comic Convention ages ago would have ended up in my stocking this morning!