It’s Haruhi Suzumiya on the Wii! What More Could an Anime Fanboy Want?

Posted by Michael Pinto on Dec 31, 2008 in Animation, Videogames

You’ll have to wait until January 22nd, but in the meantime here’s the trailer for the Suzumiya Haruhi no Gekidou (the DX Pack) dance game for the Wii. Anime fanboys and fangurls will be able to hop along with Haruhi Suzumiya — the official website is here (in Japanese) and you can purchase the game here. I can really see this game being a real hit with the cosplay crowd at anime conventions! Read more…

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Nine 2009 Techie Predictions: The Fanboy Forecast

Posted by Michael Pinto on Dec 30, 2008 in Tech

The Shape of Things to Come (1936): Movie Poster

Year-after-year I’ve watched the usual suspects make their tech predictions, so this year I’ve decided as a fanboy that it was my right to make a fool of myself as much as the next guy. Most people are in a doom and gloom mindset right now, but I’ve always felt that there are opportunities when the going gets tough. In fact my one ambivalent prediction is that somewhere in 2009/2010 someone will start a new company which will become the next big thing. But here’s what I think will be happening with the current cast of characters in the tech scene: Read more…

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Nine Crazy Cool Japanese ’09 Calendars

Posted by Michael Pinto on Dec 29, 2008 in Hobbies and Collections

Hibari Misora 2009 Calendar

To decorate your home in a fanboy style you just never want to settle for just average! One thing that I do every year to start things off properly is to order a calendar from Japan: The first cool thing is that you notice is that Japanese calendars tend to be oversized, in fact they’re more like posters with the dates thrown below. The other thing you notice is that the artwork and approach is just more creative — you tend not to see the same old image that’s associated with your favorite thing. But best of all you can find interesting off beat subject matter that you won’t find anywhere else, shown above is a good example from the Hibari Misora 2009 Calendar. So this year to share the love I’ve picked out my top nine crazy cool Japanese calendars that are worth checking out: Read more…

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Star of the Giants: Baseball Themed Slot Machine from an Ancient Anime Show

Posted by Michael Pinto on Dec 28, 2008 in Animation, Hobbies and Collections

Star of the Giants (巨人の星 Kyojin no Hoshi) Slot Machine

Going through my Flickr stream I came across an image titled Name That Anime Slot Machine so of course I knew I had an interesting challenge ahead of me! The slot machine was spotted in an Ohio antique mall —the only real clue I had was that it was based on a baseball manga or anime series. Now while there are tons of baseball manga (and all sorts of sports manga in Japan) I realized that it had to be from a show popular enough to merit an anime series. Read more…

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New Employment Opportunities for Rubber Suited Evildoers

Posted by Michael Pinto on Dec 27, 2008 in Japanese TV

Shown above is a series of adverts from 2006 for the Japanese magazine B-ing which is aimed at recruiting professionals. The villains shown are the shocker soldiers from the live action Rider series (仮面ライダーシリーズ) from the 70s: Read more…

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How Can You Call Yourself Educated if You Haven’t Seen Citizen Kane?

Posted by Michael Pinto on Dec 26, 2008 in Cinema

Citizen Kane

Recently I was talking about the topics of great films with a college bound liberal arts student and I made a shocking discovery: The student had never once seen Citizen Kane. It’s frankly shocking to me as an American citizen that in the United States of America that you can graduate from high school without having seen at least one viewing of this film. Read more…

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Watchmen: Flung by Fox Case

Posted by Michael Pinto on Dec 25, 2008 in Comic Books

Fox wins ruling in Watchmen case: Parody Poster by Fanboy.com

It’s a Christmas gift to us fanboys from Fox! It seems that their copyright case against Warner Brothers has done the trick and this may cause the film not to open come March:

Fox wins ruling in ‘Watchmen’ case

“A Los Angeles federal judge has ruled that 20th Century Fox owns the distribution rights to “Watchmen,” representing a setback for Warner Bros.’ plans to release the pic in March.
“Fox owns a copyright interest consisting of, at the very least, the right to distribute the ‘Watchmen’ motion picture,” the ruling said. Judge Gary Allen Feess issued the surprise ruling Wednesday — a week after setting a Jan. 20 trial date for Fox’s suit — and indicated he would issue a more detailed ruling soon.”

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Earthrise: The 40th Anniversary

Posted by Michael Pinto on Dec 24, 2008 in Science

1968: The first Earthrise to be witnessed by a human

On Christmas Eve of 1968 for the first time humankind watched the earth rise thanks Apollo 8 reaching the orbit of the Moon:

Happy Birthday Earthrise

“As Apollo 8 nosed its way back from the far side of the Moon for the fourth time, it was Frank Borman who first spotted the view by chance from a window, his reaction captured by the on board tape recorder. “Oh, my God! Look at that picture over there!” he exclaimed. “Isn’t that something…” After a quick joke about the fact that it was not in their flight plan to photograph it, the crew abandoned protocol and scrambled to get a snap of the occasion with their stills camera. The Hasselblad only had a black and white film magazine in, resulting in the image above – the first photograph of Earthrise taken by a human as he watched it happen.”

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Five Years on Mars: Rovers Surviving the Martian Winters

Posted by Michael Pinto on Dec 23, 2008 in Science

In January the Mars rover program will turn five years old — it’s quite amazing to think how much we’ve learned about the red planet in such a short amount of time. To me this program is yet another argument why we should focus on a manned trip to Mars rather than returning to the moon.

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Star Wars the Musical: Will Someone Please Stop George Lucas!

Posted by Michael Pinto on Dec 23, 2008 in Star Wars

Star Wars Weekends at Disney's Hollywood Studios

There’s this part of George Lucas that I love who does this great work, and then there is the dark side of the source: You know what I’m talking about — it’s that greedy guy who for the sake of a buck will let bad idea slip through like the Ewoks or Jar Jar just to rake in a few marketing bucks. Well George the greedy is back and Star Wars: A Musical Journey is set to hit the stage in London on April 10th, 2009. Amongst the featured travesties will be a kick line of Stormtroopers and singing Wookiees ruining the work of John Williams.

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Amazing Animals: Humiliating Cats on Japanese TV

Posted by Michael Pinto on Dec 22, 2008 in Japanese TV

The above cute clip of costumed cats is from the Japanese TV program Amazing Animals (どうぶつ奇想天外!) which runs on TBS. The segment features cats from an upcoming calendar including the well known chubby kitty Pia-kun.

Found via zaeega.com.

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Rudolph the Ripped-Off Reindeer: Hollywood Robs Rankin

Posted by Michael Pinto on Dec 22, 2008 in Animation

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: Hollywood rips off Arthur Rankin

Warner Bothers is ripping off Arthur Rankin who was half the team behind so many of those great Rankin/Bass cartoons from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer to ThunderCats. Due to an “accounting error” Warner Brothers claims that it’s too late to pay Mr. Rankin in a dispute that now goes back over twenty years: Read more…

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This is What Etsy Looked Like in 1978

Posted by Michael Pinto on Dec 21, 2008 in Hobbies and Collections

What do you want for Christmas? The Ronco Pottery Wheel of course! The Ronco commercials hit their hight in the 70s and was often parodied in Saturday Night Live sketches during that era.

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And Then Godzilla Leaped Off My Poster to Terrorize the Locals!

Posted by Michael Pinto on Dec 21, 2008 in Hobbies and Collections

Godzilla 1954 3-D Polyresin Poster Art

Organic Hobby has created a 3D version of the 1954 poster of Godzilla for collectors. Only 500 of these popped art dioramas will be produced and they’ll hit the streets in February 2009. Read more…

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The Fat Albert’s 1977 Christmas Special

Posted by Michael Pinto on Dec 20, 2008 in Animation

Hey! Hey! Hey! It’s 1977 and the Cosby Kids are celebrating Christmas — what’s funny is when I was a kid watching this show I had no clue that Bill Cosby was doing so many voices of the characters. I also had no clue that the show was based on a comedy routine that Cosby had put together in 1967 based upon his childhood experiences of growing up in Philadelphia. When the show was on the air I thought of it as a sort of animated sitcom and I was never able to quite see beyond the low budget Filmation animation — but looking back at it one is sort of amazed that Cosby was able to get a animated series about African Americans on the air that was educational! Keep in mind that what was shown on Saturday morning TV was about as far as you could get from PBS.

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Klaatu Barada Nikto! The Gort Wind-Up Toy Robot

Posted by Michael Pinto on Dec 19, 2008 in Hobbies and Collections

Gort Wind-Up Robot

Relive the golden age of Cold War sci fi films: If you’re a fanboy like me you know that any high budget remake will never quite match the glory of The Day the Earth Stood Still. Well now you can relive this 1951 classic with your very own Gort Wind-Up Robot which can be used to terrorize your friends and family.

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Space Beer: To Brew Boldly Where No Man Has Gone Before

Posted by Michael Pinto on Dec 19, 2008 in Hobbies and Collections, Science

What happens when a top flight international team of biochemists and rocket scientists get together? The answer is Space Beer! The brew was created with barley grown on the International Space Station: Read more…

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Majel Barrett-Roddenberry Exits the Stage: The Original Number One

Posted by Michael Pinto on Dec 18, 2008 in Star Trek

Majel Barrett-Roddenberry

It was only a few days ago that I was so excited to hear that Majel Barrett-Roddenberry would be doing the voice of the computer in Star Trek XI and now I’m sad to say that this looks to be her last film:

Majel Roddenberry, widow of ‘Trek’ creator, dies

“Majel Barrett Roddenberry, the widow of “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry who nurtured the legacy of the seminal science fiction TV series after his death, has died. She was 76. Roddenberry died of leukemia Thursday morning at her home in Bel-Air, said Sean Rossall, a family spokesman. Read more…

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Star Wars: The Old Republic Video Documentary

Posted by Michael Pinto on Dec 18, 2008 in Star Wars, Videogames

This is a cool looking documentary on the upcoming MMORPG game Star Wars: The Old Republic which is being developed by BioWare. There’s still no release date on this title, but it looks like it will be worth the wait when it comes out.

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Blythe Wishes You a Strange Surrealistic Happy New Year

Posted by Michael Pinto on Dec 18, 2008 in Hobbies and Collections

I’ve always found the Blythe dolls to have a sort of morose quality to them with their sad looking eyes, but in the above animated video from Japan feels otherworldly with the wonderfully detailed cow and kimono outfits.

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Origami Fast Food: Zero Calories!

Posted by Michael Pinto on Dec 18, 2008 in Hobbies and Collections

Origami Hamburger Set

Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce, special orders don’t upset us: I’m a vegetarian but I 100% approve of the Origami Hamburger Set shown above. I love the amount of detail that’s been put into this product from the folded faux cheese to the ice in the non-existent soda.

Found via uniquedaily.com.

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Bring Me the Head of that Clone Trooper Captain!

Posted by Michael Pinto on Dec 17, 2008 in Star Wars

Star Wars Clone Trooper Captain Helmet Replica

Your clones are very impressive. You must be very proud. This Christmas for just $430 you can own a slightly weathered Star Wars Clone Trooper Captain Helmet Replica which features working LED lights, a fully padded interior for comfort and a handy display stand.

Found via geekalerts.com.

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The Tidal Waves Under Icy Europa May Hint at Life

Posted by Michael Pinto on Dec 17, 2008 in Science

The icy surface of Europa, the moon of Jupiter as seen from the Voyager spacecraft in 1996

When most scientists thought of the one place in our solar system outside Earth that may support life the common favorite was Titan, but now that honor may go to the Europa the other sister moon of Jupiter. Astronomers feel that underneath it’s icy surface may lurk energetic oceans which due to the gravity from Jupiter would feature tides — a key ingredient to making life possible: Read more…

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Duo Jaun Doe Covers: Spiderman & The Torch in Bahia De Los Muertos!

Posted by Michael Pinto on Dec 17, 2008 in Comic Books

Spiderman & The Human Torch in...!Bahia De Los Muertos! - Cover Illustration by Jaun Doe

In March of 2009 Marvel will be featuring two versions of the comic Spiderman & The Human Torch in…!Bahia De Los Muertos! — one in English and one Español. What I love about this concept is that each book has a different cover by the talented illustrator Jaun Doe. What I love about his artwork is that instead of a typical muscles bulging superheroes cliched cover, Doe’s style reminds me of a highly stylized art deco film poster. Even his use of color is superb with Doe using a slightly washed out palette instead of the usual over saturated Photoshop look we see so often these days. Read more…

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