I shall be lurking around the Pure Evil Miniatures stand at the UK Games Expo this upcoming saturday, should anyone want to stop by and say "Hi".

[link]

It's my friend's stand, so I shan't be peddling any of my own wares (though, if there's room amid the board games, I might be able to do a convention sketch or two).

Brighton city council has received a report from a concerned citizen regarding an interdimensional portal that has recently appeared in the city…..apparently.

'I was recently walking my affenpinscher (a sort of rat on a string that some people claim to be a "dog") around the Hanover area of Brighton when I noticed that a wormhole or vortex has opened up on Montreal Road.
'On closer inspection it seems to be some kind of portal to other times, places and dimensions.
'I would have investigated further but I was concerned my little dog would be sucked into it.
'Is this meant to be there? At first I believed it might be part of the Brighton Festival but I believe it could be a hazard to the general public. I look forward to your response.'

[link]

A follow-up report from the individual informed the council that the vortex had worsened, and that large snakes were emerging from it.

The message was submitted via the council's "Fix my street" website, which is generally used for locals to inform the powers that be of damage to road and pavement surfaces.

The USA is the loudest nation on Earth. Its culture is presented to the rest of the planet in all forms of media, and has been for the decades that I've been parked in front of the TV. Kids in remote corners of the world grow up watching Sesame Street. I did, and as a result say "Zee" instead of "Zed", which pissed off my English teacher something fierce.
For those that take my jibes, barbs and sarcasm too seriously: I have no problem with that kind of cultural permeation. Far from it. I find it rather fascinating.
It has however led to a few "WTF?" moments. Questions as to what those crazy Yanks are talking about, as there is nothing comparable elsewhere. They're never in regards to anything major. Just little cultural quirks that have never escaped beyond the borders and, as such, are seen by outsiders as a total f**king mystery.

Things like "S'mores".

"S'more" is a word I've heard and read since the 80s.
"Let's make S'mores"
"Can we have S'mores?"
What the hell are you people talking about??!
I'd deduced that it was something to do with camping and, somehow, involved marshmallows. Was this what the Colonials called the practice of toasting marshmallows? How the hell did they arrive at that as a phrase? It never dawned on me as to what a "S'more" really was as no one, in any part of the world I have travelled, has ever sat by a campfire, looked at the marshmallow they're toasting and thought "Y'know what this needs? More sugar."
The blessed saviour of the ignorant, Wikipedia, has finally scratched that trans-century itch. I now know what a S'more is, and can go back to eating my deep-fried Mars bar in peace.

In my last journal entry, I brought to your attention Australia's flying cluster of nipples.
Today I want to show you the kind of thing public funds SHOULD be spent on: [link]

Yes, the city of Detroit is getting a giant, bronze statue of.....ROBOCOP.

F**k. Yes.

I'm moving to Detroit. The place kinda looks like Fallout, but they have taste!

How do you celebrate the centenary of a country's capital?
Well, in Australia; by flying a mutant udder over it: [link]

The "Skywhale" is the work of one Patricia Piccinini, the latest (and, I promise, not the last) in a long line of "artists" who have managed to convince politicians that the sh*t they're peddling is worth the price tag.
It's not a difficult con, admittedly, as career politicians are always eager to prove that they're a cultured, educated group, who are up to the intellectual challenge of leading a nation. Spending public funds on art is the fastest way to do this. £200,000 in this case. Which is quite a bit for an airborne mass of malformed boobs, I'm sure most sane people agree.

I really have to get in on this action. I could make a mint!

Michael Bay, effluent peddler extraordinaire, is tackling the view that his "movies" are naught but a cascade of juvenile, crusty-sock-level fantasies, tied together with terrible plots that do nothing but sh*t on the source material….by putting a bra-less Megan Fox on a trampoline.
Classy.

[link]

I am not going to watch this TMNT film. I am not curious in the slightest. If you have seen one Bay car-crash, you've seen them all: just picture a cookie-cutter pin-up girl, reciting dick-jokes while everything around her explodes and, off camera, an elderly man jerks off into the pile of money you gave him.

[link]

Godspeed, Sir.
Your creations scared the living sh*t out of me as a kid.
Loved you for it!

3D printing is a fabulous technological advance, and anyone with a creative mind will be thrilled at the possibilities that could be just around the corner as a result of its development….

Or would be if some dick hadn't decided to use it to make a weapon: [link]

Yes, we're back on the gun-debate-thing. And this time the pro-gun crowd are pissing me off because they've set in motion a chain of events that will stifle the potentially fabulous ability to transfer what you create on your computer into the real world.

The man behind it harps on about liberty being his motivation for doing it.

What rot.

Liberty has to be tempered with responsibility, otherwise you just have anarchy. Using new technology to build a gun doesn't make you a champion for freedom, it makes you an attention seeking moron who gives the powers-that-be REASON to restrict it. They will now do everything the can to prevent the proliferation of the technology. They will restrict the materials, current and future, that can be used in the printers. They will put as many bureaucratic hoops in the way as they can to stop anyone without the right permits, documentation, licensing or political standing from utilising it.
This egomanic ass-hat has thwarted, undermined and scuppered the plans that future creative minds could have implemented to better the world and life on it, all because he wanted to raise a mid digit at those who think guns might be dangerous in the wrong hands.

People that reach for the stars are always dragged back down to earth by the Neanderthals that just want to hit things with a rock.

I can list a whole range of eastern-born cartoons that I think look absolutely gorgeous, and whose visual style I wish very much that I could emulate.
Only a handful of those, however, can I refer to as being "good". Or even "tolerable".
Having watched them for most of my life, going back to things like Mysterious Cities of Gold and the original Astro Boy, I can say with a certain degree of authority that: Japanese storytelling is a bit wank. Daring and dynamic visuals, sure. Crap narrative.
And it can't ALL be blamed on "bad translation".

There's a wide range of gripes to be had, but chief among them these days is that the major characters, those who one would assume you're to root for, across however many episodes the series consists of, are generally complete and utter dicks.
Example:
I'm currently wading through Gurren Lagann, a series which people have raved about for a while but which I'd not had the chance to watch until now (spoiler approaching, should you be in the same boat). There's a character in this called Kamina. He's an arrogant, aggressive, idiotic thug that, when not beating up his weedy little friend, instead throws him into harms way, and drops the line "Who the hell do you think I am" at least four times an episode. Which isn't annoying at all.
He's a douche, basically.
Thankfully, he dies. Inexplicably, all of his companions are broken up about this (which I assume means the audience is expected to be also). What the hell? This guy was a twat! Don't weep by his grave! DANCE on it! He's gone. You'll all live longer!
The more contemporary anime I watch right now, the higher the pr*ck count seems to be, and they're all primary, if not central, characters. This probably explains why I keep going back to my older DVD box-sets rather than purchasing new ones. I just can't watch a series where the character that gets the most screen time is such a dislikeable prat.

I've been digging around in my retro games mag collection, and found an old copy of Amiga Power. In it, they listed a few of the key tropes that will always be found in an anime. In 20 years, nothing's changed:

[excerpt from Amiga Power, Issue 50, June 1995]

Essential Anime Scene 1: A vocal conflict.
The thing that separates Anime shouting from shouting per se is the highly stylised and distinct Japanese way it always gets done. Take, just by way of example, a testosterone and amphetamine charged showdown between the evil Antagonist and green-haired, large-eyed Protagonist. The shouting must take the almost haiku-like form of:
Antagonist: "Protagonist!"
Protagonist: "Antagonist!"
Repeat at least 15 times.

Essential Anime Scene 2: Something is surprising.
96% of Anime plots make no sense, jumping from a poignant confession of undying love one moment to a hell-spawned demon biting off a motorcyclist's head the next. If the viewers, the writers and the animators don't understand them, why should the voice-over artists that dub them? To cover up any embarrassing pauses that are caused by a particularly indecipherable sequence, all characters go "huh?" to show that even THEY haven't got the foggiest idea of what's occurring. It's become an expected convention.

Essential Anime Scene 3: She's asking for it.
The Otaku WireHeads who create Anime films love women. They think they are soft and warm and yummy. Unfortunately, they don't meet women, and even if they did, wouldn't possess the social skills to talk to one, and here's the rub. Their somewhat mixed-up feelings invariably find their way into their films. To full recreate this, scantily clad buxom babes ripping at each other's clothing is good, but women being bashed around by nine foot tall blokes is better. Strangely, this too has become the standard in anime and manga.

Essential Anime Scene 4: A meaningful debate.
Of course, it's not just terrorising innocent women, you know. What do you think these people are? Monsters? To enrich the viewer's lives, or in an attempt to even out the gratuitous violence and misogynistic attacks (one or the other), Anime films MUST contain scenes provoking thought. Read the assorted works of the world's spiritual leaders (God, Allah, the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, etc) and simply plunder random passages from each. Stick a few characters in a cell or on a mountain for a scene and have the spout some of these musings. Perfecto.

Essential Anime Scene 5: The allegedly humorous incident.
Despite all you hear about Benny Hill being sold successfully to European TV stations, humour doesn't travel that well – look no further than Blossom of Hanging with Mr Cooper for proof of this. Anime humour comes in two basic forms – 'Giggle, that's a nude girly' gags and slapstick. Slapstick a la Sam Peckinpah/Quentin Tarantino, that is. People sprinting into unseen plate-glass windows, smashing their teeth on table edges or getting their hands torn off is funny. Apparently. Something to do with the East/West cultural differences, we think.

Essential Anime Scene 6: Air is moving rapidly.
Be it the front of an approaching storm, the fearsome updraught of a cataclysmic conflagration or merely the shockwave of a small, tactical, thermo-nuclear device, numerous scenes in any Anime film MUST be windy. Ideally, the character must be standing on some lofty peak, fiercely backlit, maximizing the potential for flapping capes and those light flares that happen accidentally in movies but are carefully recreated in animated form. Skyscrapers are good, as are mountains. Or how about the wing of a 747, the hero stoically leaning into 500mph head winds?

I've had a few of my pin-ups printed out as nice, A2 glossy posters, which I've listed on ebay, should anyone be interested.

There's only one of each, and they will only be defaced by a signature if requested

Vicky:
[sold]

Chloe:
[sold]
[sold]

Other pin-ups:
[sold]
[sold]

I'm all for justice and people getting what they deserve and I believe, wholeheartedly, that the (surviving) little toe-rag responsible for the deaths and maiming of innocents should spend the rest of his natural life in some deep, dark Federal sh*thole, surrounded by people that like him as much as those outside….only they have records.

However, I'm also in favour of accuracy. At least as far as claims made by the authorities are concerned, because if they're permitted to mislabel things during a period when emotions are, with good reason, high; they'll use that inaccuracy for their own ends at a later date.
A nuke is a weapon of mass destruction.
A warhead filled with chemical agents that cause people's faces to fall off in their hands is a weapon of mass destruction.
A can filled with explosives and shrapnel is a horrible device, but it is not a "weapon of mass destruction", nor should it have been suggested it was. It implies that most people have the materials required to build a "weapon of mass destruction" in their kitchen, which, unless they have some plutonium in their spice rack or a can of VX gas in the fridge: they simply don't.
Calling the bombs set off in Boston "WMDs" gives the authorities license to slap the WMD label on whatever they please, which won't end well for anyone.

[link]

Want a free ticket to Mars? Dutch company, Mars One, is accepting aplications from any and all would-be adventurers that are willing to be hurled at the red planet.

The catch? The ticket is one-way. Their goal is to establish a settlement, not a resort.

[link]

So, if you're bat-sh*t mental and want to take part in "Operation Space-Grave", contact Mars One. I and all the other sane people will wave you off and divvy up the Terran luxuries you'll no longer be using.

Like: air.

I don't usually point out jerks like this, but this particular offender is posting a wide range of other people's stuff, including mine.
If you spot someone else's art in amongst his gallery, let them know.

>>>> [link] <<<<

Completed Bioshock Infinite on "1999 Mode".
I'm either hardcore, or that just wasn't as difficult as they said it was going to be.

Well, my favourite aspect of Bioshock Infinite so far* is that it keeps up the series tradition of never returning you to the game where you left it.
In most other titles, you press "continue" on the main menu and you're taken back to where you logged off, or, at the very least, in that general area. Not so with the Bioshock games. Nooo. None of that player-friendly nonsense here. And "Infinite B.S." takes it one step further and sometimes doesn't even record chapters you've passed through, thus forcing you to replay them again! Yes, that "Autosave" logo is clearly just decorative.
They've also kindly removed the ability to manually save, just to keep you in that perpetual state of uncertainty as to whether or not you're going to have to repeat everything you've just done when you next return to the game. Because, of course, being forced to replay the same section of story twice, or three times in a row just makes the game so much more memorable, doesn't it?


*post a spoiler and I will add your name to my block list.

F**k you, Disney. F**k you.

[link]

If you are not angered by this news, you're obviously a very young gamer and probably (rightly) see LucasArts as nothing more than a mediocre-Star-Wars-title-discharging-sewer-pipe.

Disney bought LucasFilm because of the Star Wars cash-cow, but the number of classic IPs produced by LucasArts throughout the 90s makes the descision to close it rather than attempt to return to the studio to its glory days pretty staggering.
I actually see way more potential in LucasArts IPs than Star Wars.....but then, so would anyone with even the most stunted of creative minds.

Disney obviously still own all the properties, but the LucasArts brand is gone, and it's the end of an era, even if they start picking at the corpse for ideas to ruin.

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Secret of Monkey Island, anyone?

I pretended I had been kidnapped by North Koreans.....and now I feel sick as a dog.

Can't say I don't deserve it.....

*urp*

Hi, this is Mark, Phil Jackson's brother.
As some of you in the UK will have heard on the news these past two days, Phil has gone missing. No one has seen him since Wednesday last week and we are all extremely concerned for his wellbeing as he has never missed a family gathering, such as that over Easter.
More distressing is that the office complex he works out of was broken into on the evening of Wednesday 27th March, and there is a very real worry that those responsible may be involved in Phil's disappearance.
The police are of the mind that all of this may have something to do with Phil's online work, and that a cartoon or comic may have been motive for an unbalanced party to act against him.

CCTV in Phil's office captured a handful of images as the intruders entered from the service access: [link] [link] [link]

I realise that is a very long shot, but should anyone recognise one or more of the men in the above images, please contact that crime desk currently dealing with the issue: [link]

Completed Tomb Raider. It does become slightly more player-friendly as it progresses, but it's too little too late. I really do think this title is made up of EVERYTHING that is wrong with games at the moment: it rides on an old title that it really has nothing to do with, it leads you round by the nose, it relies on dull collectable items for longevity, it thinks "maturity" means everything must be caked in gore, it's wracked through with quick-time-events and it ignores that ALL of these points have been failings of a zillion other titles over the last 10 years, leaving the developers no reason other that sheer lack of talent, imagination or common sense for their inclusion!!

Where's my pen? I'm "How To Playing" this bitch.....Might even "Zorro Perforation" it......

"You don't know how it's going to end, but you know it's going to make the papers" - Max, The Losers

[link]