Our galaxy is big, really big — so the odds are in our favor that Earth is not a fluke. Of course this thinking is old news at this point, however what’s new is that astrophysicists are starting to crunch numbers on the subject based upon what we currently know from the field of astronomy. Once such fellow is Astrophysicist Duncan Forgan who has been crunching the numbers based on what we know about the currently discovered 330 known exoplanets. His estimate took into account factors like temperature, availability of water (so yes it’s “life as we know it”) and the size of the Milky Way. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Feb 5, 2009 in Star Trek
I forgot just how much dancing was in the original Star Trek series — it’s rather amazing that thee was so much there that you could edit an entire music video out of it and hardly repeat a scene! Here’s another fan made video which isn’t as well choreographed but still entertaining: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Feb 5, 2009 in Comic Books
In this illustration Ontario based artist Rosemary Travale depicts Nightwing (i.e. Dick Grayson who’s best known as Robin) taking up the role of the Dark Knight. Travale did this illustration for a competition, but in our book she’s already fanboy approved: The two things that I love about what she’s done here is how she brings the spirit of youth into Batman (that special unsure quality about yourself) without being too cute about it — and her gouache technique really allows the texture of the paper to come through which is something that you would just never get in a Photoshop coloring job.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Feb 4, 2009 in Videogames
When was the last time that retail employees wore a tie? The year is 1991 and this training video show retail employees how to dodge problem customers who want to return their Gameboy and NES Sports Sets. My favorite example in the video is the “nice customer” who is using the wrong port and is so grateful for the help that she offers to bring the store employee a pie. By the way notice how the customer is always at fault in this video as if Nintendo would never ship a defective product.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Feb 4, 2009 in Japanese TV
This 80s advert for Tess Tea has a soundtrack that either inspired by the Katrina and the Waves hit Walking on Sunshine — or — the earlier Clash single Hitsville U.K. Although the irony of this is that much of British new wave music from that era owed a great deal to a reggae dancehall rhythm. I couldn’t find out much about Tess Tea online other than the fact that it was a brand from Suntory that must have been popular in the 80s. Here’s another anglophile commercial for Tess Tea from 1984: Read more…
While this planet is about twice the size of Earth it’s amazing to think of the progress that astronomers have made in just the past few years. I wouldn’t be surprised if in the next few years we discovered a solar system that’s similar to own own. This latest exoplanet was detected by looking for a drop in brightness of the parent star as the planet passed in front of the star: During this transit the planet appears as a tiny black dot. There’s some controversy to the exact size of the planet, but to me what’s exciting is that we’re getting better at spotting the small one.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Feb 4, 2009 in Animation
Somehow over the last month I missed this trailer for the Imagi release of Iron Man 28 (Tetsujin 28): While I love the mecha in this trailer I hate just about everything else! By making the human characters look realistic they’ve lost the charm of the original character designs. Not only that but they’re not quite realistic enough so they look like a bad video game, except for the fact that they’re very stiff looking. Making matters worse the voice overs talent has no character to it and the sense of timing in the trailer seems off. A few days ago it came out that Imagi was having financial troubles and my first reaction was that it may prevent some bad films from being made – and sadly after this trailer I’m still of that opinion.
I just discovered that in Japan that you can get an illustration made out of the froth that they put into your cafe — shown above is an example from the Ghibli museum cafe which is based on Kiki’s Delivery Service (photographed by Misugi Yasunami). Below is a bunny cup of brew photographed by my Flickr friend Yasuko.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Feb 3, 2009 in Animation
There’s something very haunting about some of the Russian animation that I’ve seen over the years, there’s a sense of surrealism but there’s something very unnerving underneath the surface. This animated film is from 1991 and is titled Frother (Потец) — it’s based upon a poem Alexander Vvedensky from 1937. The film’s director was Alexander Fedulov (1947 – 1996) and the other worldly art direction is by Vladimir Burkin. Here’s the second part of the film: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Feb 3, 2009 in Japanese TV
There’s something slightly violent lurching under this ever so moe commercial for Sapporo Ichiban instant noodles. From my crude translation my understanding is that these instant bowls of wonder come in three varieties: ramen, miso and udon.
You don’t need money, don’t take fame, don’t need no credit cards to ride this train! But sadly recession struck fanboys like myself who grew up on Back to the Future can only dream about owning a vintage 80s DeLorean — however the next best thing may this official license plate replica being offered by ThinkGeek. Although if you do want to get closer to your childhood dream the next step up would be to go to Universal Studios of Japan where the Back to the Future: The Ride simulator currently resides.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Feb 2, 2009 in Television
As a television series Max Headroom: 20 Minutes into the Future was one of my favorite shows from the 80s. Of course the character of Max pre-dates that series — he got his start with a talk show in England in 1985 which in many ways inspired Space Ghost: Coast to Coast. When Coke launched their new formula they made the bold move of picking Max as their spokesperson using the tagline “Catch the Wave!” Folks loved Max but not the new Coke and the old Coke was bought back with the label “Classic Coke” (which was just recently dropped). Read more…
Update: We also had the trailers for Star Trek and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen but the legal department at Paramount had the trailers yanked from our YouTube source. In our humble opinion this was a dumb marketing move as many fanboys (and fangurls) might not want to watch an annual jock ritual.
Posted by Guest Author on Feb 1, 2009 in Animation
Editor’s Note: In this review film critic Joe Strike gives us a sneak preview into the upcoming film Coraline which comes out on February 6th.
The moment we left Disneyland in 2003 my son regretted not buying the hoodie that was on sale in the Nightmare Before Christmas gift shop in the park – so much so that once we were back home I phoned the park and mail-ordered it for him. He wore the damn thing to death, then cut Jack Skellington out and sewed him onto a new hoodie, which he also proceeded to wear to death.
I’ve just seen Coraline – and I want the hoodie. The movie’s the third feature from stop-motion director Henry Selick, who first blew peoples’ minds with his early short Slow Bob in the Lower Dimensions: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 31, 2009 in Pulp Fiction
If you’re in the market for open source science fiction and fantasy stories you may want to check out freesfonline.de which has a pretty decent collection of works by various authors. For eons what’s left of the pulp magazines have been struggling, so I wonder if like Linux that this might breath some new life into the market? Shown above is a cover for the book Little Brother by Cory Doctorow which is one of the goodies ready for reading.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 31, 2009 in Science
Lacking a new administrator NASA’s next direction seems a bit uncertain — and part of the problem with the previous administrator was that the Orion Vehicle project which was suppose to replace the space shuttle which ran way over budget. This past week a mockup of part of the new system arrived at the Kennedy Space Center with the hope that NASA can put together a test launch by July. While it’s certain that President Obama wants to return to the moon his immediate focus at the White House has been on trying to rescue the economy, although the space exploration fanboy in me hopes he gives NASA some leadership sooner than later.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 31, 2009 in Japanese TV
I can’t place an exact date on this Japanese advert for Kirin Mets Grapefruit although judging by the quality of the animation I’d say that it was produced in the 80s. During the early days of computer animation the technique was so expensive that using it became a visual gimmick to get attention — even if it had no connection to the product that you were selling. You get the feeling that the marketing department at Kirin was a bit worried and added the young lady in the swimsuit “just in case”.
This video is from a New York fashion show that showcases models wearing superhero chocolate outfits. The fashion show was part of the New York Chocolate Show last year (I knew I should have gone). I think the most delicious featured frock was Barbarella although the outfits for Wonder Woman and Iron Man were also tasty treats.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 29, 2009 in Star Trek
I’m sort of sad knowing that Shatner won’t be in the next Star Trek film, but I’ve been watching him take on the role of a talk show host and he’s pretty darn good at it. Look out Oprah you’ve got Admiral Kirk gunning for your job…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 29, 2009 in Star Trek
This is a fan made video that kit bashes the A Team opening theme with the original Star Trek cast. The funny thing is that I’ve forgotten how many silly scenes there were in the original series…
If you’re a geek and you’re reading this, to you social media is old news — which is why it’s now mainstream (and about to get worse). But first a history lesson: The real story behind the sucess of MySpace and Facebook is that they were sites NOT aimed at geeks — unlike so many Web 1.0 hubs the real appeal of this first generation of these Web 2.0 sites is that they allowed a younger demographic to organize their real world activities. As an example MySpace empowered Gen Y to see their favorite band or to meet their classmates before moving into the form on Facebook. Yet there was still a generational barrier in place that has only slowly been crumbling lead by elder techies and creatives. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 28, 2009 in Comic Books
The art student inside of me always takes a certain pleasure when artists take on a pop culture icon — although too many times the result becomes trapped within the techniques of a Andy Warhol silkscreen look or a Roy Lichtenstein graphic approach: Which is why I’m impressed with what artist CW Wells is doing here with his take Batman which is titled mr fancy pants. His multimedia approach has a nice little touch of 80s Memphis with his approach to texture with the dark knight who’s a little bit less dark as a result. For more info on CW Wells you can find his bio here and follow his Flickr feed here.
One of the fun things about urban toys is when they give you a fresh take on a familiar character, and that’s the case with these Modern Pets Friend: Mickey and Minnie figurines. In fact looking at these toys I almost wish that Disney would think of doing some feature length animation with a set of reinvented characters done right (of course while trying to avoid over doing it ala Muppet Babies).
Posted by Guest Author on Jan 27, 2009 in Animation
Editor’s Note: In this essay film critic Joe Strike offers us his insights into the Oscars nominees for best animated feature.
For me, the Oscar I most look forward to during that endless TV show isn’t Best Picture or Best Director, but Best (or Outstanding Achievement In, I guess) Animated Feature (from hereon referred to as BAF). The first straw in the wind was Wall-E‘s Golden Globes BAF win. At that point I was sure the Oscar nominees would be Wall-E, Kung-Fu Panda and (the token intellectual nominee) Waltz with Bashir. Turns out Bashir got a Best Foreign Film nomination (way to go, Avi – nice Jewish boy makes good!) and Disney’s superdog Bolt filled out the third spot. (A fun movie, but not a flick for the ages.) Read more…
