American Gladiators: The Next Generation

Snap! That’s right. A balls joke. That’s how I roll. I sent you on the balls-train to balls-town. I’m not ashamed. I usually don’t work blue… BALLS, that is! Double snap! In your face. What’re you gonna do? Nothing.

Over new years we were talking about the new American Gladiators revival power hour, or whatever, and Denise (that’s the girl in the comic, who oddly enough is the first REAL girl to appear in HE) said basically what you see in panel 2 up there. I loved the idea that the cultural ambassadors of late 80’s America to nations far and wide were Nitro, Laser and Diamond. There’s something beautiful about that. I wondered if she feared getting pummeled with sand bags at an American shopping mall or being forced to climb a rope ladder then ride a zip line to get to the bus stop. It would have been 10 times awesome if the audio and video signals got scrambled in the Philippines so that they saw American Gladiators and heard C-Span.

I had NO intention of watching the new American Gladiators until I realized that it had been infused with HULK-A-MANIA. Oh, brother, let me tell you, brother, that Hulk Hogan, brother, is one lumpy pile of orange man parts. He must sleep in a tanning bed for the same reasons Dracula sleeps in a coffin. They are both kept eternally young but develop complexion problems as a result.

A few things stood out from the 20 or so minutes I saw of the episode. First off, there was SO MUCH HULK-A-MANIA, brother! They could have toned it down to a moderate Hulkitiude and I would have been fine. God he freaks me out. You want to peel him, then zest his flesh over a salad. Anyway.

Secondly… TOYOTA FUCKING GIANT SUV-A-MANIA!!! They mentioned their sponsor just a few times. One of the tests was to run across an oil slicked glass bridge while Gladiators threw trucks at you. Everyone died.

Third thing: this guy comes back 14 years after having lost on the original show only to get his ass handed to him by some kid 10 years his junior. It’s SUPER SAD if your biggest regret, the demon that haunts you and prevents you from being a well adjusted person is your American Gladiators failure in 1994. Can you imagine? He lives a decade and a half in the shadow if this wretched event knowing that he can never be given a chance to redeem himself because the show simply no longer exists. 14 freaking years late they announce a new AmGlad (that’s the abbreviation I just made up), and reopen the wound (and offer new opportunities for sucking).

Last thing. Wolfe. Wolfe looks like what would happen if Dog the Bounty Hunter, an actual wolf, the 80’s, a pickup truck and hair had a crazy 5-way hump session that somehow led one of them to crap out a baby (probably the truck). I assume he was found in the woods, rabid and starved, raised by the US Military and kept in cryo-stasis until such a time that he would be needed. That time is obviously now, brother. My favorite part is that his “real” name is Hollywood Yates. “My name is Hollywood, but you can call me Wolfe.” “My name is SuperRockandRoll but you can call me SexFactory.” “My name is RocketLauncherSpeedo but you can call me NinjaTank.” “My name is SharkJetPack but you can call me MotorcycleExplosion.” I could keep that up for hours.

The lost Toshiba press conference

The match can be explained, but why did he have a gallon of gasoline behind the podium?

With Warner Bros. planting their flag firmly twixt Sony’s Blu-Ray buttocks, only Paramount and Universal remain married to HD DVD. I was pulling for the maroon boxes (though I refuse to commit to one or the other) because they are cheaper to produce, cheaper to buy, the players themselves are cheaper, and the tech is (sort of) better if only for the fact that the spec is finalized and the features work on every player currently being sold. If that makes no sense to you, you probably aren’t aware that the Blu-Ray spec IS NOT finalized and most of the players on the market right now will not be able to take advantage of the features on Blu-Ray discs coming out, say, tomorrow. The PS3 is the only acception, since it’s such a hoss of a machine they can continue to upgrade its features through software as Blu-Ray evolves.

CES happened this weekend, and Toshiba was going to have an HD DVD “State of the Format” press conference… until they heard about WB ditching them for blu-er pastures (I guess this means I’m rebuying all of Dawson’s Creek on Blu-Ray now). The Tosh packed up their embroidered swag bags and said, “I’m taking my maligned high definition format and GOING HOME! NYEAH!” The ONLY right thing for the HD DVD Consortium to do right now is gracefully admit defeat. Not because they are definitely going to lose (though the outlook isn’t good) but because they now have the power to end the format war and reunify the fractured consumer masses.

Josh and I were in Best Buy this weekend looking through the various next gen discs. Battlestar was on HD, as was Bladerunner. This is good news because Josh has the HD DVD Xbox add on. But LOST was in a translucent blue box. Well, god damnit, we want High Def Jack and Kate and such too! We’re not going to drop $400 for a PS3 just so we can support both competing formats (Eli did exactly that). No one cares about the studios behind the movies and shows we love. We WANT to give you Hollywood douche-tards our delicious monies. Why are you making it so hard.

Repulsive Behavior

Punned! (not to be confused with Pwned)

It’s 2:30am. Cheap puns are all I have to offer. All the trailers for “Iron Man” make it look like the type of thing I would want to see. At first I thought Robert Downey Jr. (RDJ if you’re nasty) was a bit of bizarro casting, but that’s when I remembered that Tony Stark was a loathsome, womanizing douche-hole. So RDJ is perfect! I’m full on expecting the suit to have a coke-vac nose candy sucking attachment. A face-Hoover of sorts.

I never really read Iron Man comics. Eli read the Marvel Civil War religiously. Apparently Iron Man is the Cheney of the group. I did buy the issues where Tony “died” and his black friend took over the suit-duties and became War Machine. As soon as they resurrected Stark I lost interest. How is a brother supposed to make it in this super hero game if the white man keeps coming back from the dead to take him down. Do you remember Black-Superman or Afro-Flash? Of course not. That’s my point. Stark… like stark white. Now it’s all starting to make sense. I hate the white man so much.

So much.

Alien Vs. Predator: A Bun in the Oven

Since the movie is actually titled “Alien vs. Predator: Requiem” I really wanted to do a “Requiem for a Dream” comic, but I already blew my wad on that reference (or was it my “stash”).

Eli actually saw this movie. I did not. There’s something about purposefully submitting to suffering that doesn’t appeal to me. It’s a self preservation thing. He was in some sort of focus group, so they passed out questionnaire cards for everyone to fill out. Judging from the questions, he was not in their target demographic.

Sample questions:

1) How fucking bad ass was this fucking alien movie and shit?
a) Super fucking bad ass
b) Re-god-damned-badass-diculous
c) LOLZ I SHITTED MY PANTZ!!!LOLZ!!101010ONE!!!TWO

2) Which part of the movie was the most awesome?
a) The explosion(s)
b) The Alien
c) The Predator
d) There were parts?
e) This was a movie?
f) Fuck yeah!
g) The (other) explosion(s)

3) If we keep making movies like this will you keep giving us money?
a) Super fucking bad ass
b) Hell(z) yeah
c) Dude, let me ask my momz…. HELLZ2THaYEAH!
d) LOLZ I SHITTED MY PANTZ!!!LOLZ!!101010ONE!!!TWO

I hope you all are enjoying 2008 thus far. My wife and I rang in the new whatever at Eli’s with cheese dip, and ribs and Pictionary. Regarding pictionary: if the clue is “Puff Daddy” and your drawing elicits the response “Smoke Father,” you should win the whole game right then and there.

Here’s a desktop of the last panel. Enjoy!

1600×1200

1920X1200 (wide)

Think Different, but not Secret.

Six or seven years ago my friend, Wes, would call me out of the blue and say things like, “Think Secret says Apple is going to release new flat panel iMacs,” or “Think Secret says Steve Jobs just invested 200 million in Amalgamated Black Turtle Necks.”

I would usually respond with, “It’s four-fucking-thirty in the morning! Why are you calling me, what’s a Think Secret and why should I care about Apple and their queerly user friendly computers?! Aren’t they made of wishes and candy and unicorn entrails? I like my computer cold and hard and sharp and hateful.”

This was many years before my conversion to the teachings of Steve. Even in my ignorance I knew Think Secret was some sort of player in the hardware super spy game. Dangling from a ceiling harness, lifting the microfiche off of the desk of a sleeping Steve Jobs. He would awake moment too late, press the giant red…no, white button on his desk and call for a Cupertino-wide lock down. “It must have been that dastardly double agent from Think Secret!” Steve would say as giant steel doors would slam down over the windows and exits.

Colorful novelization aside, Think Secret is no more. No one knows the real terms of the deal Apple offered the sites creator, Nick Ciarelli, but he took it and bowed out gracefully. The rumble is that it went something like:

Steve: “Stop thinking secretly about our products before we release them! The “Boom” is everthing and you are ruining my fun times!”

TS: “WTF?”

Steve:“Instead of suing you, we’ll offer to buy you out in exchange for you never writing about Apple ever ever again.”

TS: “WTF?!”

I really hope no one is calling “sell out” on this guy. Faced with the options of a crippling lawsuit from a multi billion dollar company that would leave you financially raped and ruined or a nice fat check and something cool to put on your resume, I think we ALL would take option B.

It seemed like Steve-O was on a killing spree when Fake Steve Jobs reported that same thing was being done to him. Turns out it we were all suckers and it was a big fat lie. When you can’t trust a formerly anonymous blogger who impersonates a tech-celebrity online in a mocking fashion to be completely honest all the time, you can’t trust anyone. Especially anyone who’s first name is “Fake.” And to think… I Dugg for him.