Thursday, October 29, 2009
Sometimes Robots Can Be Scary: A Link Round-Up!
The title says it all after I saw this in my regular Robot News. A robot which controls a robot army to explore new worlds? What kind of implications can be made about robots that command other robots? Soon they will be self-sufficient, I'll bet you on that.
And that is the day when we'll be completely boned. Speaking of robot-boning, this year was the Matrix's 10th Anniversary. I was unaware of this because the sequels ruined the franchise for me, but I caught the first film halfway through yesterday on G4's Movies That Don't Suck feature. It was good to see how well that movie withstood time, and comparatively how awful the other two movies still remain.
G4's other feature, Attack of the Show, also announced a remake of Short Circuit, which isn't scary in the sense of robots wanting to rip you into pieces and use you as a battery (spoiler for the Matrix, even though it's been ten years since the movie came out, get with the times) but it is scary because movie producers nowadays love to destroy their precious intellectual properties in order to make a quick buck.
One last scary thing: this one doesn't have to deal with robots specifically, but instead technology. The late Chris Farley was used in a commercial for DirecTV. By having supporting actor David Spade break the fourth wall, this blog post asks whether is resurrects the late comedian into something macabre.
My vote? Creepy but fascinating. I think Chris Farley's passing was one of the most tragic of celebrity deaths, right up there with Bernie Mac.
Also, Happy Halloween (soon). Expect a post of some Halloween shenanigans (and the Max Brooks footage once I can edit the film).
Zombie Survival Guide author Max Brooks at Sage College
What is your zombie plan?
I know I know. This is a blog about giant fighting robots but humor me for a minute!
Max Brooks, author of the Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z, has dedicated much of his time to help those who want to prepare for the zombiepocalypse understand how to cope with all of the issues which will arise once the shit hits the fan. Transportation, weaponry, health- he's got you the bases covered in his two bestselling novels, and if you want to take Z-Day seriously, I'd recommend getting his books.
Albany, New York has been honored by Brooks by going to Sage College to lecture and tackling the questions of zombie enthusiasts with definitive answers. The event all together was fun and relatively calm; even though I expected a larger turnout for a superstar in horror literature, only half of the bleachers in the gymnasium which housed the event were filled.
And even though his public service was hilarious and well executed, the night of zombie mirth was hindered by the fact that I was the only person that dressed up as a zombie (a zombie clown to be exact).
Overall, it was a blast to see Max Brooks live and have him laugh at my costume. Check out the youtube clip below to see some of the show!
update: I will be editing the footage of the show for time, since Youtube removed the video from their website which took all night to upload because it was too long (it was thirty seconds over guys. thanks you tools).
Monday, October 26, 2009
Manventures: Karaoke Makes Me Feel Like a Beatle!
To keep it short and sweet, like Gary Coleman on Different Strokes:
I went to Daniel Nester's book release and karaoke party. The day after that I saw Dan and his friend Chris Connelly again and stole their umbrellas. That same day, I went to the zombie march of Albany and didn't take pictures. And then Sunday I was supposed to go to the Mastodon/Dethklok show, but funds have been short and I really needed to go to the Grocery show, so me and my apartment dwelling buddies watched The Thing (spoiler in youtube clip. watch out!) while enjoying hummus.
The issue I have is whether to take a camera with me during these moments or not. All I know is that I missed out on some excellent photo opportunities this weekend, and now my blog is found wanting.
Sure is some crazy fun life experience though. Cheers!
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Speaking of Robot Dancing
And in so many ways is this video more entertaining than my dreams and aspirations for this blog (one day it wants to be a firefighter). What I need you all to do is check out these videos because they will make you smile.
Battle of the Robot Dance Moves
From the film Eurotrip, this clip raises the question of what makes the weird robot impersonator. Is it their tenacity? Or is it the ability to make cool robot noises with their mouths?
Not really Manventures, but still: Deadliest Cans Haiku Epilogue
Monday, October 19, 2009
Manventures: Deadliest Cans Part Tres
Also, it was hard to justify the gambling portion of this competition because both Frank and I were supposed to publicly address how much we each earned, but that didn't happen. Instead, I have decided to extend an olive branch to my opponent and call Deadliest Cans in.
So here are the final numbers:
$4.50 from cans
$2.15 from bottles
no bottles were refunded because that return machine was broken. The bottles will be donated*
And below is photo evidence
I want to thank everybody for their support in Deadliest Cans. Special thanks goes out to ENG315, and I want them all to know that if they want to compete on the blogs, let me know!
Damn I'm a nerd. But I love it! Look forward to one more installment of Deadliest Cans and find out where I donate the money.
*left outside of Price Chopper for someone else to turn in.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
SNL's Insurance Against Robots for the Elderly
UPDATE: Had to remove Hulu from the page because they threatened legal ramifications.
Just kiddin'. It just looked like garbage with the current format.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Manventures: Deadliest Cans Part Deuce
Frank Cutie agreed to the challenge, under the conditions of a bet; the opposing party to score the largest haul, in terms of monetary value, would win the other's cash. He calls himself “a gambling man”. Well, just to let you know I have a gambling problem. It really is an issue, and you’re the enabler, Frank! Shame on you. I accept your terms because I’m ill!
After my last class, I prepared a battle plan to pull a quick lead over the Catfish. More or less, I wanted to wear the proper attire. I concluded to wear warm, thick clothes (a sweater, a snow cap, and my awesome gloves that look like a muppet) and wearing my handy dandy headlight to help in the excavation process.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Manventures: Deadliest Cans Part One
Maybe some kind of deity has forgiven my trespass, (a deity of fun? St. Chucky Cheese?) hoping that next week’s Manventures will be so entertaining that my neighbors will quake in fear and awe while I clear my throat?
Uh huh uh huh uh huh. God damn. (I listened to this song a million times this weekend. And I listened to this one a lot, too.)
Regarding the weekend; it should have been more exciting than it actually was. The ruckus started Thursday night with a 21st birthday party, which was celebrated like a children’s slumber party. It ended with a black and white formal party which turned out to be me and ze Grif wearing suits around a bunch of people wearing sports jerseys and wife beaters who smelled like their spilled beer because after a point in their inebriated state, fratboys need a sippy cup and a fucking bib.
There was one fun part about this specific party, though Frank “the Catfish” Cutie, who sang a wonderful combination of songs (I couldn’t name them if I had all my lifelines), and danced on a glass table.
I’ve known Frank through several classes through my collegiate endeavors, but this was one of the first times that I was hanging out with him in a social event. Except for a “Whats up dude? Nothin’, glad you came!”, I only got to talk to the Catfish for about two minutes before he was consumed by the party horde.
Frank was wearing a cool suit though, his whole apparel completely white. Maybe like a phantom, he dissipated over the crowd like the fog.
I could come up with rhetoric all day. Push comes to shove I couldn't find Frank again because there were a ton of people in a small space, but I wanted to continue our conversation more than just the friendly formalities!
The day afterwards, ze Grif and I ran into Frank again. We talked about the party (and how craaazay it was), and then about the classes Frank and I share. ze Grif broke the ice and asked “Hey. You’re the can guy, right? We want to compete against you!”
Frank was curious, so I continued for ze Grif like a spouse, “I want to make a competition video, like Deadliest Catch, only with cans. Interested?”
And here we are, in this blog, announcing a collaborative effort. And I’ll Form the Head and Canned Heat will be going toe-to-toe to see how much recyclables we can procure over one Tuesday night.
One may ask, “How the duck does this relate to robots?” It doesn’t. Unless I can get my hands on a shopping cart which I will name after a Transformer. (Leave comments, damn you! Give me suggestions. Right now I am partial to Sound Wave- the audio cassette version. Not the satellite. Gotta show support for a robot in need.)
If I have to lug around cans by hand, maybe I’ll invest the money I earn into some kind of robot paraphernalia. Like an action figure with karate chopping action. Or one of those really complicated robot models that take hours to construct because the pieces are really tiny, and then you get high off of the model glue.
Aren’t blogs great? I worked out what I can do with the money over the course of writing a paragraph. If I can make enough money, I’ll invest it into one of those aggravating models and document or videotape the procedure! Are you not entertained?!
So this is something to look forward to, Robofans! Keep checking in for the next episode of Manventures: Recycling Edition, or whatever better title I can muster up. Deadliest Can? That sounds pretty good.
Friday, October 9, 2009
Also, the FLASH FICTION CONTEST. GO!
Now available from Life Alert! Get yours today.
Robot Gaming: Android by Jadegame.com
Check this game out!
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Star Wars with Live Orchestra and a Yodeling Yoda
This is relevant to my interests because of George Lucas' contribution to robots in science fiction. This event might intrigue you because, well, the Star Wars epic encompasses nearly every aspect of every science fiction genre.
They're good at what they do! And they can milk a franchise like a nursing Tauntaun.
NOTE: I just wanted to post a link to the Tauntaun just in case you weren't aware of what they were. I'm so happy that one of the first links was to a Tauntaun sleeping bag. It is so gross and funny at the same time and I WANT ONE.
Androids Learning How To Speak?
This specific robot, a toddler sized mechanized Android, is being designed as a social companion. It already has a recognition program that allows it to use cameras for sight and identification, and this robot already has the ability to interact with its environment.
Whether this specific robot will be taught to speak is questionable although it has the potential.
Stelfano Nolfi, one of the Italian researchers, holds hope that the robot will be able to speak, but programming the task will take effort and testing, "Like in the case of humans and animals, it has to develop these skills by a process of trial and error in a sense."
What I want to know is when we are able to teach robots how to speak, how will we be able to shut them up? They have been silent for so long lord knows what they'll complain about. They'll probably complain about shitty operating systems like Vista.
Atleast we'll be able to negotiate and compromise though before they begin the robot uprising. These kinds of relationships are all about communication.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Robot Gaming: Robot Dinosaurs That Shoot Beams When They Roar
It's a bit easier than The Tickler and you'll find yourself laughing through it with the ridiculous sounds that your robot dinosaur, either Tyrannosaurus X or Dinomite, make when they shoot lasers out of their mouths.
The gameplay is simple and easy to understand too. Use your mouse to direct the flying robot dinosaur, and click to shoot lasers. There's something about writing the words "flying robot dinosaur" together that makes me feel warm inside like Christmas morning. Throwing the word "laser" into that same sentence is gratuitous though. There's so much sweet shit going on in this game that you're likely to develop a cavity.
In short, check this game made by Arcade Bomb out if you think you're awesome enough.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Robot Gaming: The Tickler
a) ze Grif can be playing a violent internet flash video game.
b) Lunarsaurus is screaming to relax his throat for his heavy metal choir rehearsals. Therapeutic and Traumatizing.
c) My arch nemesis Dave is playing Dexter again.
Today was a little bit of a and b. Dave is dead to me (he's vacationing to see his girlfriend. DEAD I TELL YA). More importantly though, ze Grif happened upon the robot killer flash game The Tickler.
I just tried my hand at it and it infuriated me. The premise of the game is fun, you choke humans instead of tickling them, but as ze Grif stated today "If you don't have the chance to win in the first five minutes, you flip out". I gotta work on my gaming etiquette. Or maybe just flip out more while I try my hand at the game again.
You start out by killing your creator, and then you work your way through levels of killing civilians and military. As you go about your murderous rampage, you get fun little upgrades like extended arms to choke out people even further away from you, and lasers to shoot them with while you choke them out.
The game is about choking people out. That's it. It's like living the life of Wayne Brady.
Give props where props are due. Thanks Kongregate and Revzin Ideaworks for your propagation that all robots want to do is choke others. You're hurting the community (but you wouldn't be wrong).
Monday, October 5, 2009
Transformer Star turns Comic Creator
Right now Image Comics has released two issues, and a third one can be downloaded through Itunes that has special effects and voice overs. Shiny.
The best part of this new super hero? Gibson and "Mayhem" have already been offered a movie deal, which he supposedly has declined for now until comic sales improve.
From his CNN interview, "You can't expect to sell out the Staples Center until you sell a bunch of records." Right on, Gibson. Everybody knows its a matter of time before Mayhem hits the big screen, but its nice to know that Tyrese Gibson wants to settle the roots of his character before he sells the fruit for millions and millions of dollars.
Manventures: Appleocalypse
You may or may not have picked up on the fact that if I don’t do anything over the weekend my apartment will explode. To save the lives of my innocent roommates, and my neighbor/arch-nemesis, Dave, I have to go out on MANVENTURES and witness the world and its awesome glory (all the while thinking of some horrible robot jokes to justify posting about personal outings in a hobby enthusiast’s blog.)
This week, instead of getting shit on by bad weather, I decided to head home and spend some quality time with the family. So, I guess this week’s installment of Manventures is more like Famventures (a mix between “family” and “adventures”, use it and love it). The first couple of days were marred by a weeklong sickness, evident in the post which I compared editing my blog-roll to the elimination process of the Next Iron Chef, which kept me incapacitated until this morning.
However, sickness can not keep me away from tradition. I forced the cold out of my body like an estranged lover and little steam engined through to our family activities; apple picking.
Let me put it in perspective to you- people love to do a little bit of manual labor once in a while for that authentic feeling of “roughing it”. A similar experience is using the automatic cashier machines at Walmart.
I’m not dissing on the picking of the apples. It’s one of the most enjoyable parts of the year for me. Except for the part when my family gets rowdy and starts to chuck apples at each other. My older brother left me with a bruise on my knee that I know will leave me walking with a limp for the next couple of days, but I got the upper hand right before the event ended.
I can pass off the lurch like I’m Dr. House though, all sexy douchebag like. Did you know the new season started? That’s one of those shows where you don’t want to watch it but then you watch the first couple of minutes, then you’re definitely sure it is lupus and House walks all over you and he’s so bad but so good. What.
Tangents aside- famventures are much better than staying cooped up in a house rigged to explode unless I fill it to the capacity with fun.
I need to talk about a robot before I finish writing this blog. How about Astroboy? I should go see that movie, I guess. Looks decent.
In all actuality, I went to see Zombieland this weekend and it was zombielicious. Why don’t I just write about zombies instead like the genre traitor I am?
Next week prepare to see a change in content- “And I’ll Form the BRAINSS” is much more catchy anyways.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
The Titan Maximum Review: Based on Episode 2
It’s a good feeling, and you wanna flip out with everybody else, but it dulls the critical senses.
And now, for my honest opinion: AND I’LL FORM THE HEAD gives TITAN MAXIMUM a solid “cool”.
My main complaint would be its too short. Fifteen minutes barely does the show’s ambitious plot justice. I was just getting comfortable with the show’s new slew of characters, Admiral Bitchface, Sasha’s father, the President of Titan, and the new antagonistic chibi anime robot girl, Claire, when the episode abruptly ended. Maybe it’s a good complaint, because I want more, but it’s aggravating because I have to wait another week for another fifteen minute snippet.
The best thing the show has going for it is its humor. Not only does it poke fun at the genre- best scene of the night was the “Joker” of the squadron attempting to infiltrate Gibb’s fortress being quickly reprimanded for his corny jokes, and then he admits he was forced into the professional Joker military position in training camp- but Titan Maximum is also developing its own inside gags. A good example would be Sasha, the most characterized teammate of Titan Maximum so far with her over the top sex antics and general pleasure from tormenting the rest of the team. Right now she’s the only character rounding out, but the premise of a stereotypical giant fighting robot team allows for the flat characters which make up the rest of the cast.
So I’m sticking to my guns. Titan Maximum is cool. It isn’t great yet but the show is giving itself a lot of room to grow and that’s the best way to go about working on a show with such a peculiar story.
Titan Maximum, I’ll be watching next week and I hope you keep upping the ante. (and for all of you who didn’t watch this weeks episode, next weeks episode involves punching a giant frost monster in the junk. Who would miss that?)
Friday, October 2, 2009
Spread the Joy on Thick: Transformers 3 set to release in 2011
Episode One: Sam meets Mikaela and creams in his pants when his car turns into a robot.
Episode Two: Sam and Mikaela learn to love each other more after participating in their friends wonky sex adventures (Giant Robots beating the crap out of each other. Kinky.)
Episode Three: ...there's a pattern here and you can't deny it! Or Frodo throws a ring into the lava which burnt Anakin something awful.
Also, you cannot deny the similar proportions between Labeouf and Biggs' heads.
Triple also combo, you cannot deny that Jason Biggs would have made a way better Sam Witwicky. Let Shia out of the contract, Michael Bay! You know he's happier when he's impersonating Harrison Ford.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Giant Robot being constructed in Japan
Having the Transformer Live Action Movie Blog in my blog roll paid off afterall! Now, which of these RSS feeds are not worthy of my attention? I shall cut one of them off day by day until the true champion reigns supreme. Like Iron Chef.
Speaking of which, I am going to watch some Food Network, enjoying my Nyquil induced nonsense babble in one more post, and pass out. Goodnight ya'll! (Now I'm channeling Paula Deen. She sure loves butter.)
update: watch the clip here