(Stunned Silence)

Got $19,999.95? Want a land cruiser/tank? Well have I got a deal you you sir! This deranged piece of equipment is available now on Amazon.com for the low, low price of 5 cents shy of $20k.

It's the JL421 Badonkadok Land Cruiser/ Tank! Do you a (I assume lightly) armored tank to cruise around the desert in? Do you need a tank to intimidate that guy at work into giving you your parking spot back? Do you... I've run out of clever things to say because I'm in shock that someone actually built this behemoth.

Somehow, I ran across this beast on Amazon when I was looking for Firefly comics and this popped up in the "Customers who viewed this item also viewed" category and took me by surprise. At first I thought it may be a joke, especially given the crazier and clearly photo shopped pics in the gallery. So I punched the name into Google and what do I find, references to this nutso craft as far back as 2005. Either the guy keeps making them or no one has bought the first one yet.

So what do you get for your $20,000? I'm glad you asked fine sir! It's got room for five inside the "armored" plated hull and five more on the roof. A 400 watt sound system with a PA function, all kinds of trim and under lighting as well as a movable control stick that allows you to drive inside via the included camera or with your head sticking through the roof.

I have no idea how practical this non-road legal mini Jabba the Hut sailbarge is. Not sure how much cargo it could haul, not sure how impact resistant the steel plating is, not sure how quick of a getaway you could make at 40 mph top speed. But I am sure that if you roll around town in this baby, you will get pulled over and then taunted for spending $20,000 on it.

Shut up Alexis Castle!!!!

No one else in the 'Verse is happier than I that one of my man-crushes, Nathan Fillion, has steady work on the ABC series Castle.


Fillion has found the perfect role to play, a mystery writer with child-like joy who is "a bit of a douche" according to Fillion. Now, there was much hype when this photo leaked out from the set of Castle for the then upcoming Halloween episode.


If I have to explain who he is dressed as, get the hell off my blog. At last, the long awaited return of former Browncoat Malcom Reynolds, captain of the Firefly class vessel Serenity! that's right, it seems that Fillion and the writers of Castle have an awesome sense of humor dressing him up as his well known geek counterpart (or according to the show a "space cowboy"). What I find especially impressive is that I bet Castle's target demographic is very different than Firefly's so this is basically an in joke to the online geek world.

There's one problem, Castle's daughter is kind of a bitch. Watch the clip. Don't worry the actual bit you want is in the first few seconds.


Shut up little girl! We all want Mal back! Although I have to admit when you say "space cowboy" out loud it does sound kinda stupid. Makes it even more impressive that Joss Whedon was actually able to pitch the show to Fox.

One Mans Trash is Another Man's Speakers

Terracycle is allowing nerds to reduce their carbon footprint. Finally nerds can do something useful with all those Cheeto packages that are littering your desk, send them over to Terracycle and they will turn those packages of delicious orange dust into speakers.
Terracycles a company in New Jersey, “insert joke here”, is doing something they call “upcycling” where they take trash and turn it into useful products and then sell them to consumers. For instance for 19.99 you can buy speakers made of Cheeto packets, and backpacks made of Capri sun pouches ( I just hope the backpack does not puncture through and leak everywhere (maybe this only happens to me)). Check out their webpage for other interesting things they have “upcycled”
I am all for this, while I am not a crazy environmental activists I am all for anything that helps out especially when the end result is something pretty cool. There is really something for everyone here; hipsters will love the irony for walking around with a messenger bag made for Capri Sun juice packets, hippies can rock out to some crunchy jams with some Sun Chip speakers, there are also biodegradable flowers pots for those with a green thumb, and a ton of other neato products. So, nerds keep eating your Cheetos, but send those packages in to Terracycle, together we can make something far more useful than a painting on Campbell's soup cans.

... of the Dead

It seems that as long as George A. Romero is willing to put pen to paper and jot down something about the living dead, some studio out there is willing to give him the cash and access to cameras so he can make a film about it. Check out the trailer to his upcoming film, George A. Romero's Survival of the Dead.

Ok, here's the basic plot line: humans are trying to wait out the still rotting corpses by taking refuge on Plum Island off the coast of Delaware (which does not exist) but wait, there's a twist this time! The humans are working on a way to bring zombies back to life. Ummm... even if there were a cure, I'm not sure it would be any good unless you gave it someone a couple hours after infection because you can't fight decades of decomposition.

Before I pass judgment on this little flick written and directed by one of my heroes let's check out a clip.


Not at all sure what the point of that was but OK. Let the judgment begin: George, one of the things that made your zombie movies so awesome was that we only got one flick per decade and they were rife with era-specific social commentary. This is George's third zombie flick this decade and after the weak but enjoyable Land of the Dead, I'm not sure he has much else to say. Are you making up for the fact that there was no 90s installment of the series by piling them on now?

Now, you could look at Diary of the Dead as a reboot of the series because it documents the initial outbreak seen in Night of the Living Dead with a modern setting. But if that's the case, I'm not sure what that movie had to say... well, actually I do. I suppose it was about the instant celebrity possible peopel think they can get if they have a video camera and YouTube. The guy opts to keep charging batteries instead of saving his friends... deep.

Here's my biggest problem with the newer flicks, I don't want my zombies to evolve or change or learn or anything like that. I want them to be zombies. At the end of Land of the Dead the zombies wander off after feasting on the rich of Fiddler's Green and the hero just lets them go? Why? Just because they chowed down on the evil rich people doesn't mean they won't much a few poor folks they come across as they wander out of the city. And here's the proof that not even our hero believes the zombies have changed - he continues his trek north in the Dead Reckoning, an armored, armed to shit truck! Why didn't he get out and walk or use a more energy efficient car from the Fiddler's Green motor pool? BECAUSE HE'S STILL AFRAID OF FRACKING ZOMBIES!

Zombies don't change Geroge, stop trying to make them. You're never going to teach enough of them to eat something else. Sure, Bub from Day of the Dead started ignoring the people but how long did it take to teach that one zombie that little trick? Take a note from Zach Snyder and just make awesome zombie movies please.

Maybe the helicopter is made of chocolate

Only 23 more days until Left 4 Dead 2 comes to stores and I can stop rhythmically gunning my way through the original game on auto pilot and only playing the finales.

This is a quick update to show you the newest trailer that looks like a compilation of in game cut scenes that depicts the plight of our four heroes as they battle their way across zombie infested 'Nawlins.


They really didn't need to sell me any more on this game but that trailer totally did. Meelee weapons galore, new special infected, crazy environments and AWESOME regular weapon upgrades. Why do I love gunning down zombies so much? I think the hardest part of a real zombie apocalypse would be having to act like I wasn't wicked excited so as not to creep out the people I was trying to survive with. Man... maybe I should go see a shrink or something.

Grandpa Ryan, tell us again how stuff on the Net used to be free.

In an attempt to become exactly as popular and socially relevant as Napster is, Hulu is going to start charging you for video content next year.

Damn that graphic is bigger than I thought

It seems News Corp's (which owns Hulu) Deputy Chairmen Chase Carey has decided that his company gots to get paid for broadcast content online. Here's what the typical greedy fuck with the Geraldo Rivera moustache had to say:
"I think a free model is a very difficult way to capture the value of our content. I think what we need to do is deliver that content to the consumers in a way where they will appreciate that value."

Wasn't lying about the mustache was I?

Translation, "You don't appreciate that fact that stuff we spent no money making is free so we're going to teach you a lesson... plus I need a new yacht."

Bet they wish that little slogan wasn't all over the web site

I have no real comment on the monetization of Hulu because I watch very little on it. However, I like the idea that it's free and it's there. But get ready to watch all you want before they throw up the pay wall. The word on the street is that Hulu has no plan on how to start charging yet and it may leave current offerings untouched while adding another level of paid "premium" content that you have to shell out cash for.

Either way, it's got to help boost News Corp's falling profits which I sure are not hurt at all by Carey's $10 million signing bonus and $8.3 million per year salary that he got when he returned to the company earlier this year. Business as usual in the corporate world.

So as Hulu is poised to enter the realm of "I like it but I ain't paying for it" in the same way that Napster and The Real World did, the anarchist in me considering burning down the HQ of another media conglomerate and operating a pirate television station like one of my heroes from the 1980s.

(Clever title describing my hatred of Apple here)

So Windows 7 is out and I love it. I will give a full list of reasons why later this weekend but it took no time at all for Apple to do what they do best, use a slick image to crap all over every PC out there. Take a look.

Gee wiz! Mac is so young and hip and cool! Awesome! God Almighty I hate these fracking ads! But I digress from the point. I'm not about to begrudge Apple (or whoever they have in advertising) for coming up with a great marketing campaign. The commercials are funny and before the righteous indignation boils up inside of me, I do chuckle a bit because Windows and PCs do have their share of problems. The Vista era Mac vs PC ads were great because Vista was/is a piece of crap. So much so that I stayed away from it until I replaced my XP laptop a few weeks ago and the new one came preinstalled with Vista. In the month I suffered Vista, I experienced more problems with it than I care to recall and I quickly and quietly took it out back and shot it in the head with Windows 7 as soon as I could.

Here's my real problem with this new set of ads. First, they obviously had to be made months in advance of Windows 7's release so Apple didn't even have time to get specific with any flaws in the new OS. If there are problems, point them out and we'll all have a really good laugh. I'm fine with that. Second, are they really focusing on the "hassle" of importing all your shit onto a new OS? That's the best they got? Ohhh ZING.... I guess. Hate to break it to you, but when I upgrade to 7, all my stuff was saved on my hard drive and it was just a matter of rearranging the directories on a few files to make everything hunky dory. Oh no! That's sooooo much harder than switching to an entirely different OS that is set up in no way like the platform you've used your whole life and is so damned simple and restrictive a trained monkey can use it.

If you're going to crap on Windows 7 at least come up with something good. Before I go I will give Apple points for this one though, 80s Miami Vice PC cracks me up for some reason (even though it's supposed to be the mid 90s).

But to be fair, Apple should have appropriately aged back Mac also until he was a just a long flannel shirt wearing, Starbucks guzzling, Kurt Cobain wannabe rocking out to Smells Like Teen Spirit.

Windows fanboy in me aside, here's what everyone needs to remember when they claim their OS is perfect and I'm talking to companies and fanboys alike.
Oh and fret not Windows fans... I have it on good authority that PC totally banged that chick in the second video! BOOM! In your face Justin Long! Where is Bruce Willis to help you now!?