Target of all places had Rick and Morty figures so I had to score everyone’s favorite laborer Mr. Meseeks. This mini one I summoned through the Meseeks Box is present to make sure I left the Pflugerville Public Library on time, probably to have dinner with Somara. Remember, you need to give them a simple, timely problem to assist you on because if you don’t, existence is pain!
Maybe I should summon another to help me set up the Rick and Morty figures. Get them to do something funny.
I know this movie came out a couple weeks ago and 90 percent of my review was written but I had derailed by life. If you haven’t seen this, check it out. If you have, comment on where you agree or beg to differ.
A Thor movie finally arrived and it was worth the wait. This was one of the better Marvel flicks too. I find it unusual how well Marvel does with sequels than introductions because Ant Man and Doctor Strange were photocopies of Iron Man via the hero’s journey. Captain America: First Avenger was different, Steve Rogers isn’t a flawed person requiring humility or another chance.
Moving along, Ragnorak cleverly combines the Walt Simonson-era story arc with (I think) Peter David’s Planet Hulk arc. It’s not a spoiler since the trailers and commercials gave away what could’ve been a great reveal of the Hulk being trapped on the same battle world. If you recall from Age of Ultron, Thor received a disturbing premonition about Asgard. However, it must not have been the first thing on his mind as the movie opens with him fighting Surtur, king of the fire giants. After Thor brings home his trophy, he finally discovers Loki has been on the throne for over two years. As his defense, Loki explains how their father Odin went on walkabout and wasn’t interested in governing. The duo find Odin in Norway with some help from Dr. Strange (this was from Doctor Strange‘s post credit surprise). Despite Asgardians being gods to us Humans, they have finite lifespans too and Odin tells his sons how his time is over so be ready for whatever happens. (A convenient way to get Anthony Hopkins off the Marvel gravy train.) Seems Odin was the only power keeping their older sister Hela, goddess of death, in check.
Once Hela dispatches Thor and Loki, she proceeds to establish her rule over Asgard. Heimdall, guardian of the Rainbow Bridge, remains the last god capable of keeping Hela in check. Without access via his key, she cannot expand her reach to the other eight realms, namely Midgard, aka Earth. Heimdall hasn’t left Asgard, he just fled to the mountains and is secretly taking in refugees.
Meanwhile, Thor arrives on an alien world run by the Gamemaster, a being who shares some traits of the Collector from Guardians of the Galaxy. The vortex which carried Thor also took longer due to Loki having arrived months earlier and the god of mischief found a way to ingratiate himself to the Gamemaster while Thor is stuck being a gladiator with the Hulk as his first opponent.
That’s enough plot synopsis. You’ll have to see how this all plays out.
Marvel took a more humorous route with Thor too. I’ve heard many complain about MCU now just emulating the goofiness of Guardians as the plan with all the upcoming flicks. I disagree. Ragnorak switches between the funny and serious quite well. Otherwise the title would be meaningless (in case you’re unfamiliar with Norse mythology, ragnorak is the battle the gods would fight against the giants in the future and many were predicted to die). What I liked here was how Thor got the prophecy to happen but with a more desirable outcome. If you stick around through the end credits as per MCU tradition, you get a clue on what may happen to Asgard next.
Alamo Extras: Trailer from King of the Vikings; kids playing instruments at a RenFair and they’re damn good; music video to “Lightning Strikes” by the Metal band Thor; clip from the movie Valhalla; Swedish version of The Bozo Show showcasing a superhero dance bit; Alamo provided recaps from previous MCU movies with Thor in them to prep for Ragnorak; music set to Thor’s hammer hitting things; clips from the Sixties Marvel Superheroes Show; Tom Hiddleston doing a bit for Korea’s version of SNL.
Sunday was our first visit to the Lego Store in weeks; had to get the Women of NASA set! In many ways I missed going, especially when it comes their kiosk for building minifigs! I can’t remember what Somara was making but I was trying to score new styles of hair and accessories (found only eight of these bitchin’ helmets I want to use for a future Star Wars fighter squadron)…then, inspiration hit when I found the musketeer hat, the tweed torso and the head with a big handlebar mustache! This is my attempt to recreate America’s 26th president by combining his Rough Riders fame (the hat, pistol) and how many Americans picture him from old photos in history books.
I feel this creation also moves me one step closer toward my goal of becoming a Master Builder! The key is demonstrating how you can repurpose existing Legos to create what you’re intending.
This artwork by Erol Otus was the cover of my first D&D Basic Set circa 1981. Erol was often someone people really hated because I think he took a more unconventional route. As per this painting: the wizard is a woman without a pointy hat and the warrior is using a spear, not the traditional sword you see in film/TV.
So many great memories of the $12 boxed set I cajoled my grandmother into buying for me at Kay Bee Toys while I was staying with her for the Summer.
The company behind the shirts didn’t quite have the right shade a magenta from the game’s box. Purple is close enough.
If you haven’t heard by now, Netflix has renewed MST3K for another season since the Return was a success by their mysterious algorithms. Meanwhile, as a proud Kickstarter backer way back when (I chipped in enough to get the Blu-Rays), I had the opportunity to get these rare thumb drives. The downside is them being a mere 8GB when 16 is the norm but then again, having the infamous, wise-cracking robot companions made it worth their price tags. Not sure what storage duties they’ll be carrying out, I just don’t want to lose them like my Commander Data.
Tommy passed away last Wednesday in his sleep despite being in really good health. The papers said he was 59. Wow! He could’ve fooled me since I had the honor of seeing him open for Matthew Sweet (twice) this Summer and had a brief conversation. The latter was great because Tommy had a new record almost done with plans to tour with a full band and Austin was on the list of stops. As for his show, he was great and a complimented Matthew Sweet perfectly. Matthew even had Tommy on stage to sing/play “I’ve Been Waiting.”
Despite having very brief big-time fame in the mid-Eighties, Tommy was very respected by many artists/band who were his contemporaries who had him on their records: Goo Goo Dolls’ Dizzy Up The Girl, Robert Pollard (aka the lead guy behind Guided By Voices, if that isn’t Indie Cred, I don’t know what else is), Don Dixon, T Bone Burnett, Richard X Heyman and Paul Westerberg.
After I saw him, I did clean out Waterloo Records of any CDs they had. Now I will need to bug my friend Chip for additional material.
Thanks Tommy! You were a treat to listen to, a pleasure to speak with and you will be missed by all us Power-Pop fans.
Last year, while I was sick, I had enormous problems eating. Like I was going to vomit and at other times, I just wasn’t hungry. After I recovered, food tasted so good and now I’m way overboard. How overboard? My knees are starting to hurt which I’m interpreting as my body saying, “OK lard-ass, we really need to cut out the Texas Burgers at Pinballz, Dr. Pepper in general and get to the gym.”
As much as I love to run and am striving to get to my next destination (Toad River, BC), I thought it would be unwise until I get back down to 250. Yeah, I weigh even more than Homer Simpson, my target to avoid.
This leaves these killer indoor bikes at the gym. You set up an account and it tracks your cumulative progress. I’ve been on them infrequently since 2015 (maybe) and yesterday I had racked up 18 cumulative hours. The bike’s computer then said, “Congratulations! Amelia Earhart’s flight from Hawaii to California was 18 hours long.” Currently, I’m cycling an hour every day while my Apple Watch tracks the workout elements. The Activity application never monitors cycling exercise on its out, but when I fire up Workout, blammo! I manage to close the exercise ring twice a day!
So until I get back to running, I will put aside the progression bar and substitute the one for cycling. I also hope to break my ring-closing record of 12 days in a row. Maybe I will exceed my longest set record, way back when I was seriously running over three miles a day, 70 days in a row.
Oh yeah, Somara will be helping me lower my intake and what I do stuff my face with.
One major reason why I’ve been offline, not updating the Picayune, has been my ongoing sadness over losing a nice set of friends to Europe. Well, Jeremy says they won’t be there forever but given that the American electorate (one of the most undemocratic systems in the world, I mean, the Republicans have only won a majority ONCE in the three last victories they were handed) has given the White House to an infantile narcissist…if I had a chance to flee, I’d never come back. This nation has a historical hatred of expertise, education and intelligence (my cousin Ron is living proof) since we allowed the first White Trash colonists from Scottish Ireland into the colonies; they’ve been a historical problem in our country from the day the Quakers let them in. Fact. The New England, New York and Southern colonies refused to take these pugnacious, short-sighted assholes. They’ve also been responsible for many internal conflicts and rural poverty too.
Anyway. I was pretty depressed over missing out on seeing Ben and Penny grow up on a more frequent basis. At least, if I visit, I’m confident they’ll be solid translators should I wander into the more Dutch-speaking parts of the tiny nation.
Jeremy has been my friend for 16 years, a pretty long time given my gypsy background. We accidentally met one day in 2000 via a call evaluation. Back then, the system was a dice roll. When I picked a call through the queue, the system would link you to the next call about to be answered. Ergo, Jeremy was probably in his rights to ask, “who the hell are you?” as I was in rotation and in the building across the parking lot. If I recall correctly, he did pretty well. Afterwards our paths crossed again when I was trying to set up a D&D group through work. I’ve been a presence in his life ever since, even when he moved to Houston for a couple years to be one of the first retails works at the Galleria. Imagine how stoked I was when he and his ex-wife returned to Austin.
I think this will be another test of the Internet proving its hype about making the world smaller, last year it failed at bringing America together. Jeremy still manages the hosting of this site so it may to a point. Kristin is pretty cool too. I did thank her in person for rescuing Jeremy.
Jeremy is the first person I’ve ever designated as being someone I wish were my little brother. In TV tropes, he would be the more daring, courageous one to my stodgy, risk-averse while detail-obsessed persona.
I think we’ll be in touch through more than just FaceBook (my least favorite method). There’s much to exchange and I will be bugging him and Kristin for kid pictures. Plus I owe them puppet shows.
Safe journeys Derrs. I’m going to miss you very much.
Woo hoo! Only four years behind the pace I set for expanding the stream’s library or content but still, it’s quite a landmark from the day I started from just 2000 off the top of my head.
I know most of you don’t care yet think about this…how many people even “own” 14,000 song. I put the word own in quotes because we now live in an era in which people, namely younger ones, treat music as a disposable commodity. Who needs to “own” music if you subscribe to streaming services that cater to your wishes right? Who needs radio? Who needs record stores? Who needs tastemakers? I definitely will ask this question again when terrorists successfully pull off an EMP burst to wipe out many cloud-based services, sending the West into chaos. Corporations have continuously proven their incredibly cheap and inept at securing your private information. Why did HBO keep their shows on an accessible server anyway?
I think the near future will be interesting to see how things will shake out as we return to being singles-driven. We already have fewer people claiming to be musicians as their primary livelihood as the ecosystem collapses. Sorry to rant. I prefer to buy music permanently, it’s how my favorite artists survive for they won’t be able to on the crumbs Spotify, Pandora and Apple hands out.
Last weekend I had the honor of briefly meeting while laughing constantly to The Daily Show‘s Michelle Wolf. Besides being a prolific writer, Michelle was incredibly funny, especially when she was covering gender politics and the weirdness of NYC; when Austin has a broth store, we’ll know, she warned us.
Michelle will have a new special next month on HBO but everything we saw in Austin was brand new.
Again, I’m just glad to speak to her a tad, tell Michelle how much I enjoy her work, namely her attack on Confederate monuments since I’m a Yankee.
As I peek out briefly from my Stranger Things 2-hole, I’m halfway through it, NO SPOILERS!!!…I wanted to drop a less depressing post to welcome you all to the home stretch of a crappy year. Well, crappy for the world since the most powerful person is now a Chinese dictator as per The Economist and I have to sadly agree, the orange baboon with a Twitter problem has squandered America’s place as a reliable player. Meanwhile, his followers, supporters and stormtroopers still have what a comedian called asshole momentum. Translation, they’ll never admit to being wrong about what they’ve done because there’s too much energy going this way to stop it. Plus as the Dunning-Kruger effect goes, stupid people worship equally dumb-ignorant types (Sarah Palin, Ronald Reagan) thanks to the aura of confidence they surround themselves, their bubble you could say. Let’s hope Mueller isn’t eliminated by a Saturday Night Massacre II.
Me? I’m getting prepped for the Winter Movie Season, Thor: Ragnorak is up first with The Last Jedi on the horizon. There’s a few more I want to squeeze in like Downsizing, Coco (maybe Pixar will regain their mojo), The Shape of Water and My Friend Dahmer. Pinballz will be my new launch point for cranking out this year’s blasphemous Christmas Cards. Lastly, trying to get my D&D game back on track along with maybe, maybe a couple other side campaigns I want to manage to keep me sharp. Either more D&D, Star Wars or the new Star Trek game I scored.
Don’t be strangers.
I had the brief pleasure of meeting Michael this Spring at Austin’s small but growing gaming convention Chupacabra Con. As you can see above this recent photo was taken of him attending, showing off the latest wares from Hero (aka Champions) Games. Learned via enworld.org that Michael was well-known for being a sharp dresser, something the gaming community is rather averse to do…smart-ass/geeky T-Shirts tends to be the couture amongst us. He was a very pleasant and enthusiastic gentleman. It inspired me to buy a rulebook from him to give as a gift to one of the Champions diehards I know. Lastly, his positive energy was great enough to get me to play a special session of hims Champions game. Michael’s passion for sales and presentation also carried over to his game-mastering style. He will be sorely missed in many ways, not just at 2018’s ChupacabraCon V.
Since the Packers had the weekend off, it gave me some time to highlight their most famous coach and the winner of the first two Super Bowls. However, I want to bring up what he changed about the NFL off the field, namely desegregating the Packers and other social issues.
Vince grew up in the Bronx back when Italians were in the same position as Latin American immigrants are today.
After high school he attended seminary to join the priesthood but two years later he changed tracks, enrolled at Fordham. There he was a star player with the “Seven Blocks of Granite” (a very tough offensive line) and graduated magna cum laude in 1937; name a college football player who did the same in the last 60 years.
He was done with football as he took a full-time job with a finance company while attending Fordham law school at night.
Yet the game called him back because he quit it all to take a less lucrative job teaching and being the assistant coach at St. Cecilia High School in Englewood, NJ. The position gave him a deferment from serving in WWII as well (back then, the US Army drafted people as old as 45). After eight years of success at the high-school level, Vince got the chance to join the staff at his alma mater Fordham. This only lasted two years since he was lured away by West Point to study under the Red Blaik; hard to believe West Point used to be a contender. I remember reading an article in Smithsonian from a reader who wrote them a letter about how he got a personal visit from Vince to join their team. Vince was pretty honest too, it wasn’t going to be easy. The writer said he went elsewhere while saving the personal letter he received from Vince.
Lombardi then joined the NFL as an assistant coach with the NY Giants in the Fifties. His drive, work ethic and strategies helped them have winning seasons.
As 1959 rolled around, Lombardi was the new hot coach everybody wanted. We all know what happened next, he chose the Green Bay Packers. Not exactly a “smart” move given the NFL’s growth in larger media markets, television covering the games and the AFL appearing around 1960 with cities like Houston, LA, New York and Boston in their rosters.
Lombardi’s coaching, exhausting training camps and demand for dedication made Green Bay a winning franchise through the decade. He also recruited more Black players; the Packers only had one Black player when he got there, by 1967, there were 13…it was a start. He may not have been a great figure in the Civil Rights movement, but he made it clear throughout Green Bay and the League, the Packers wouldn’t patronize any business that didn’t admit any of his players for any reason; aka, places which made Blacks come through the kitchen if they were allowed at all. He extended his “no intolerance” policy toward homosexuals, something really way ahead of his time; yet biographers think it was due to his younger, gay brother plus a couple people in Green Bay’s front office. Regardless, good move on his part and this was when head coaches had the final say unlike today’s NFL star-player-driven policies.
With two Super Bowls under his belt, he took some time off and then signed on with Washington where he made them winners for the first time in 10 years. Sadly it didn’t last, he was diagnosed with some pretty aggressive cancer and died in a couple months at 57.
Vince lives on for his accomplishments: changing the game, fighting for equality, stuff named after him in Green Bay and his Brooklyn neighborhood and having his name on the Super Bowl trophy. He is admired by many, even grudgingly by Chicago and Minnesota’s fan base.
This incarnation is probably the version of D&D most people around my age remember, the terrible Saturday-morning cartoon. Despite being in high school when it debuted on CBS in 1983, I would make the effort get up and watch it. Ugh. All the horrible, lazy cartoon tropes that were used, namely the unicorn as a mascot making cute noises to aid the rather dumb teenagers. I endured because it would be a long, long time before the numerous creatures and villains of the game would appear in film or TV yet settling for animation in video games.
My sensei Les used to have the PVC figures of them. With the use of Twilight:2000 rules, he made a made game in which the D&D characters fight the Smurfs, another horrible Saturday-morning show rife with dozens of PVC figures you could buy anywhere in the late Seventies. Maybe Les can clue us in on what the game entailed.
Obviously I’m the Cyberman and Somara is Beetlejuice. We’re flanked by a Dalek, Mr. T, Buttercup and Disco Batman.
