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Archive for July, 2011
Captain EO makes fun of my childhood OR Yes, kids, the Eighties WERE that cheesy.
2The Cosmos. A universe of good and evil where a small group struggles to bring freedom to the countless worlds of dispair. A rag tag band led by the infamous Captain EO.
Oh Lord.
I didn’t move to Florida until the late eighties and (somehow) I completely dodged the Disney theme park attraction bullet called “Captain EO.” It wasn’t until a couple of weeks ago that Joey Snackpants and I found ourselves walking around EPCOT in Orlando that I finally had the chance to see it first hand.
For those of you that have no clue about what I’m talking about, Captain EO is a 3-D movie experience created in 1986 for the Disneyland theme park and is the product of pure distilled eighties. How eighties is it? Disney scored the top talents in that era to make it. Check it out:
- The Executive Producer was none other than George Lucas.
- The film was directed by Francis Ford Coppolla only AFTER Steven Spielberg had to turn it down due to a scheduling conflict. Mr. Coppolla co-wrote the screenplay with his pal George.
- The movie’s musical score was written by James Horner.
- Rick Baker designed the special makeup effect for the film.
- Bruno ‘Pop N’ Taco’ Falcon, Timothy ‘Poppin’ Pete’ Solomon and Ben Lokey all appear as dancers in it. Don’t recognize the names? All three of them are from the eighties “classic” Breakin’
- And (of course) it stars Michael Jackson.
The special effects draw from “hi tech” trick in the eighties book: claymation, blue screen, miniatures (a la Star Wars,) and even muppet technology. It’s so “awesome” it almost hurts.
Walking out, all couldn’t shake the feeling that that film was making fun of my childhood somehow. The reality of it, though, was that it WAS something from my childhood that i missed entirely. If you feel brave enough, check it out:
PART 1
PART 2
ADDED NOTE: For all you Star Trek fans out there – I think it’s pretty easy to see where the TNG team got their “Borg” character design ideas from (including the Borg Queen from the movie.)
Review: Catching Fire
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Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The Running Man with a Teenage Girl Part 2
That’s an easy comparison to draw, but the truth is that The Hunger Games Trilogy is (at least in my eyes) living up to the hype as it’s own entity. It’s well thought out, solidly written and the characters are very engaging.
Regarding the characters: I like Peeta… which means (in the end) he will probably get the shaft. I’m reading the third book now and I can already see it coming: nice guy, hopelessly in love, does everything to protect/save the girl. That can mean only one thing in the end. (Just ask any of those “Team Jacob” girls.)
Girly melodrama aside, the science fiction aspect of this book is great. It’s entertaining post-apocalyptic action and I hope the movie(s?) live up to the storytelling.
Now please excuse me, but I have a third book to finish. 
So why am I not a fan of a convention called Chibi-Pa?
21 year ago
by Tom
in Conventions
Earlier this month I hosted a panel at Florida Supercon called “A History of Florida Anime Fandom.” In the panel, I tell stories about anime fans in the age of anime clubs and VHS players to wide eyed locals. Once I get through the initial dozen or so Florida anime conventions, I ask the audience to name conventions they have heard of and cross them off a list I bring with me to the panel.
(For the record the list has over thirty names on it now.)
Since I was in South Florida, Chibi-Pa was brought up by someone in the audience. My answer: I can’t stand the convention or the guy that owns it.
That might sound pretty harsh, but the fact remains that they guy has been an “that asshole” on the Internet not just to me personally but also to Florida’s anime fans. Every time I explain it at the panel, I always end my little rants with “look it up on the Internet.” Today, I wound up doing just that. Thus, the next time I host the panel I can just point people to this post.
WASABIGAY.
After some of the usual Interwebz shenanigans on forums, Livejournals and via email, Chibi-Pa’s official site posted the history of their convention. In it (under the “About” section) it cited the founder of Wasabi Anime (me) as a the reason they kept going. The were intent on “proving WasabiGay wrong about too many conventions.” (That last part is an actual quote.)
Added note: for those of you new to my blog, my handle for a number of things online has been “WasabiGuy.” The misspelling was someone’s (allegedly) clever way of slamming me. That said, if you’re on Xbox Live, that’s still my handle. Add me!
WHEN IN DOUBT, BLAME THE FANS.
I can take insults; it comes with the territory of being any sort of personality at events. The moment when Chibi-Pa went from “annoying” to full on “asshats” was back around mid-November of 2006. After a failed attempt to put on the convention again, they posted a message for all to read on their main page. I’ve taken the best paragraph from the message and bolded and underlined the most interesting part of it. Check it out:
“So Lynn and I decided to make this announcement considering we believe that there is no chance that we will be able to come up with the required monies in the next 10 days. On that note we would like to apologize to the people who have helped us and worked very hard to make this event. We apologize to vendors and advertisers that wanted to come to our event. We also apologize to the artist who have lined up to attend Chibi-Pa. On the other hand we do not apologize to the attendees that came to our website and saw the donate button. $1 form 1000 people may have kept Chibi-Pa alive. But you are so busy worrying about your daily lives that you do not care about the big picture. And for that you can stay home and twiddle your fingers. Maybe you can dress up like your favorite anime characters and go to the local mall. Just pretend your at a free anime event. Cause thats as good as it gets for now.“
Pure. Class.
The team at Wasabi Anime is mired in projects now spanning the U.S. Before the year is over, we’ll have appeared in Atlanta, Indiana, Miami and Orlando. Next year there’s even the threat of finding ourselves in Los Angeles. We just can’t be everywhere all the time… but DAMN, how I wish SOMEONE would pick up the reigns in West Palm Beach and put on a quality convention the fans there deserve.
So endeth the post.
For the complete Chibi-Pa “blame the fans” page, click here.
Stupid begets stupid: The Casey Anthony News13 (@CFNews13Casey) Twitter and the Fall of Journalism.
1If the Casey Anthony media fascination has taught me one thing, it’s that the majority of the American public are as imbecilic as the rest of the world sees us. I am truly embarrassed at the widespread focus, fascination and resources being used to bring light on one pathetic human being over the tragic death of a her child.
Make no mistake: the death of the child IS tragic. It’s our fascination with hating someone and making them a media sensation that makes this such a bad reflection on us all. I am fairly certain that there are dozens (hundreds?) of other deaths and tragedies of justice that the news could educate us about that deserve our attention and energies to change the world. Who care’s, though? Angry housewives and Nancy Grace MUST BE HEARD, right? <facepalm>
Last night, I was in Orlando and saw that a local news station had dedicated a Twitter account and even a website where the (m)asses could congregate online to obsess about where this local chick was going in the middle of the night a plane.
So if I so don’t give a shit about it, why am I writing about this post? The truth, dear reader, is that this post isn’t about her. It’s about how crappy the media has become and how they can’t spell the word “quiet.” See image below.
Typos in my blog as some random asshole on the Internet are one thing. Media outlets who can’t catch typos as professional sources of information just prove that the people feeding the information are just as uneducated as the idiots reading it.
<gets off soapbox>
Reservations are DONE! We’re going to Chicago for the first time. WHAT SHOULD I SEE?
2I will be heading to a convention next month in a far off land call Indiana; while there, the Mrs. and I have decided to pop over and visit Chicago for a couple of days since it’s a city we’ve never been to. Chicago seems like a cool place to visit, but not a “vacation destination” so we decided to burn through some hotel reward points and just spend time seeing the city over three days.
On the to do list so far:
- The Willis Tower (aka the old Sears Tower)
- Lucky’s Sandwich Company (from Man v. Food… another challenge!)
- Al’s Italian Beef (more MvF goodness)
- Gino’s East (the final MvF stop from the Chicago episode)
- The Navy Pier
So what suggestions do you have? What else should we see while there?
