Clone Wars Recap S4 E14: A Friend in Need! MANDALORIANS PEW PEW!

Holy crap, you guys, the Mandalorians are back on the Clone Wars! And not the sissy Arian dignitary Mandalorians that talk endlessly in glass cubes and poison each other's tea. I'm talking about the badass Boba Fett T-visor helmet, jet backpack, flame-thrower wrist PEW PEW I'MMA KILL YOU Mandalorians led by Pre Visla (voiced by John Favreau).

PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW!

If you're entire body is suddenly rocking violently with bloodlust and testosterone then join me after the jump!

Socially Awkward Podracer Ben Quadinaros Is Now On Twitter!

I don't know if all of the podracers, have twitter accounts and I don't care. I just saw that Ben Quadinaros, the socially awkward podracer (Wookieepedia said it, not me) is now tweeting away.

If you need a refresher.. Ben Quadinaros is this guy.

Follow @BenQuadinaros on twitter, and see more of his tweets after the break.

Friday Night Movie Review: The Sitter

I was able to get someone to watch my 3 children tonight, so I could take my wife out and watch a movie about someone very irresponsibly babysitting 3 children. Luckily my babysitter is my mother and not Jonah Hill.

So how was the movie?

Boards and Beers - Mondo

Ever wanted to build a series of islands in a timed fashion?

AMC Presents - Comic Book Men!

So I've know about this for a while, but wanted to see what you all think...



Comic Book Men is a new reality TV show starting on AMC February 12, 2012....finally a reality show for Geeks!!  Set in a comic book store and using the same basic principles as shows such as Pawn Stars (I guess), it's scheduled to follow The Walking Dead and appeal to the same audience.  The comic book store in questions is Jay and Silent Bob's Secret Stash and the employees of the store are already somewhat known from the podcasts "Tell 'Em Steve-Dave" and "I Sell Comics!", both available at Smodcast.com.  None of that is really important though, except that I've been listening to both podcasts for a long time and can vouch for the oft-hilarious content.  It also means that Kevin Smith is heavily involved in this.  Whether you find that a good or a bad thing is up to you.  Personally, I'm a big fan.  Anyway, If we MUST be stuck with reality TV shows, this has GOT to be better than another whiny model or bad singer show, right?  Right!

The Newest Star Trek Board Game Is... Star Trek Catan!?

It's definitely a big year to be both a Star Trek fan and a board game fan. There's the very well-received strategic miniatures game Star Trek: Fleet Captains, the cooperative Reiner Knizia board game Star Trek: Expeditions, an interesting take on deck-building with Star Trek [Deck Building Game]: The Next Generation, a HeroClix compatible theme called Star Trek - HeroClix: Tactics... and now, just announced, we have Star Trek Catan!

Click through the jump for a picture of the board and components, as well as some information about the gameplay.

Follow Friday(?) - Skyrim Mom!

Skyrim Mom is a Twitter account that compiles quotes from the mother of Bethesda's Nick Breckon. His mother is 65 years old, loved Red Dead Redemption, enjoyed Fallout 3 enough to make a spoon rest in tribute (pictured above), and is probably the cutest lil' dragonborn you're liable to hear about this week. If anything, she'll have a lot of stories to tell her Dovahkids about!

Let's Create More Honest Phantom Menace 3D Posters!

Kinogallery is showing off some new The Phantom Menace 3D posters (check out more at their site) and they're pretty cool and effective EXCEPT the one thing that bothers me is that they mostly seem to focus around Darth Maul. Now, don't get me wrong, Darth Maul is a super badass, but if I'm remembering Phantom Menace correctly then he only appears in it for about three minutes, and those three minutes are some of the most serious in the film. So what about celebrating all the wacky fun crazy zaniness that happens in the other 2 1/2 hours of the film? Huh? What about that?

So I conscientiously fired up the ol' Photoshop and I made some new posters that far better reflect the actual  content of this wonderful wacky fun crazy zany sci-fi classic. Enjoy!

And there's a couple more after the jump, so be sure to check out the brand new posters as well as my honest interpretations!

Watch Andy Serkis Go Totally Ape-Sh*t!

This is something that I've been wanting to see for a while now - Andy Serkis, in the mo-cap suit- going totally ape-shit against a sleepy James Franco! Check out this noize:

Now what I really want is to see a full cut of this film where Caeser hasn't been added at all, and it's all just Andy Serkis as a crazy man-ape that James Franco grows in a lab. And then they can change the name of the film to Rain Man 2: Totally Bananas! and it would probably win some Oscars or something. 

Via.

Ninja Gaiden 3

Whoa this effin multiplayer!

That looks hilariously awesome. What the heck is going on with Ninja Gaiden. I think the only game I played was on the super nintendo.

I have heard the games are a lot like this:

Any Ninja Gaiden fans out there?

Tim's Top 10 movies for 2011

Here's my top movies list for 2011(pfft soo last year) and honestly as soon as I post it I'll probably want to revise it again. This is over 9000 times harder than my videogames list

anyway let us jam

Wes Anderson's New Film, Moonrise Kingdom ***TRAILER!!***

Whoa.

Looks like it's about 50% The Royal Tenenbaums, 35% Rushmore, and 15% The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou. Is there a better film formula than that?

A D&D 5E Wish List

Wizards of the Coast announced this week that Fifth Edition Dungeons and Dragons is in development. This is somewhat surprising, since Fourth Edition landed in 2008, making this by far the shortest gap between editions.

I actually only started playing D&D regularly in 2008. Some friends invited me in on the new 4e game that was being launched, and we're just on the cusp of epic tier for this campaign. While I always had the desire to play, I never really had the opportunity to join in until well into my adult years, so I don't have a lot of the same memories - good, bad, or indifferent - about the older editions. Squares have always been 5x5, magic missile has always hit, and it's unlikely a housecat will kill me because I rolled up a character poorly. While I've enjoyed my time with 4e up to this point, I do have my own inexperienced opinions as to what could be done to improve the game moving forward.

Binary Domain

From the guys that brought us the Yakuza series comes the robot apocalypse "Binary Domain"

The story is something of an I robot, terminator sort of world where the machines become self aware and the the gameplay is a squad based shooter (which seems to be the current videogame flavour these days) where how you treat you fellow team members affects how well they will follow orders or chose to help you out. Apart from this well cut trailer what really excites me is the game is being produced by the Yakuza team who excel in story, characters and quirky ideas.

Pretty dang excited for this one. It's supposed to come out on the 23rd of Febuary

Speaking of Yakuza we also have this spinoff to look forward to this year (in March I think)



What I like about the Yakuza games is the old noir feel that made you want to drink whisky and smoke a cigarette as you explore and meet all kinds of interesting people in the Japanese underbelly. I'm not sure if I really wanted zombies in this world but as long as they keep the pulp Yakuza grit in the game I'll be happy

J. Tagmire's Top Ten Movies of 2011

2011 was a big movie year for me. I saw FOUR whole movies in the theater! TWO of them were in the same day!

While I didn't get out to see a lot of movies, redbox was my friend in 2011. Vending machine movie selection isn't always Oscar level, if you give it time (or get there at the right time), you'll find some treasures.

Here are my top ten movies of 2011.

What's Out? 11th of January 2012

A new week means another attempt by me to think of a way to not refer to today as New Comics Day. I know that's the norm but I'm looking at more than just comics here, y'know? New Release Day? How do you like the sound of that? Happy NRD, everybody!
Let's take a look at what's happening:

Movies Worth Buying!

It’s Tuesday once again, and time for another list of stuff that’s out on DVD and Blu-Ray.  I’m running way behind this week because I’ve been finishing up re-writing a movie for a friend of mine.  It’s shooting this weekend, so we’re a little under the gun…but with any luck, I’ll have some fun “behind the scenes” stuff to share soon.  We’ll see how that shakes out.

But that’s not important now.  NOW, it’s time to talk about movies that are already out, and why or why not you might be interested in purchasing and viewing them.  Honestly, it’s not a huge week…but there are a few things worth noting.

Right, let’s move on.  I’m going to go straight into things and get this over with.  I think I may be putting too much work into this, and I’m not sure anybody’s really paying attention.  I mean, I like talking to myself, but why type it all out?  As always, I’m including links to Amazon…but feel free to buy your movies anywhere.

As always, I’ll put the actual list after the jump.

Resident Evil: Operation Racoon City

If you've seen a kickass cutscene for a video game you'd be pretty right in guessing it is from Blur Studios

Here's their latest "sell a million in presales" cutscene for Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City

I hope one day they take a break from making videogame cutscenes (and their other vfx work) and put some time into "The Goon" which they have teased us with

GAH!! I need this movie to be made!

Tuesday Bounty! Glorious Bounty Returns for 2012!

It's not just the Book Was Better Podcast that has made its triumphant 2012 return today! The ongoing web comic series that I write and the irrepressible Edward J. Grug III illustrates also returns today with the next exciting, or possibly confusing, instalment depending on whether you have been reading it or not.

As a re-cap, mysterious bounty hunter Furious Bruce has been strapped into a Convoluted Killbot that will crush his head while projecting his childhood memories (a stupid idea that was instigated by the reprehensibly shifty Deevis - who has been unwillingly collared with a bomb in case the experiment fails). Bruce is desperate to uncover who he really is behind his borrowed face and is shocked to discover that he was actually once a little girl.

Now click to embiggen or just go the official site.

And seriously, there is never a bad time to start reading Glorious Bounty. Book One begins here if you want to start now!

The Book Was Better Episode Eight: Crossroads!

The Book Was Better podcast is back! Christmas, New Year, and Jessica's horrible disease have kept us from you. But no longer! We couldn't stay away from you, dear listeners, and the gem of literature that is the novelisation of Crossroads. 2012 is looking bright, but 2002 is even brighter. Let's dig up the box of our dreams and peek inside! With apologies for Jessica's lingering cough, and Luke's gross comments about Britney Spears.

Nerd History: The Billy Possum

I've recently become somewhat addicted to a podcast called 99% Invisible. While it markets itself as an architecture and design podcast, the quick hit podcasts are really something more than that, blurring the lines between building and culture, talking just as much as to how society and history influences design as it does in the other direction. While it hooked me in with a story about a person who would scrawl messages into drying concrete, it was a recent podcast that hit all my nerdy nerve centers.

I was a history/political science major, and I live in a small town that has, among its claims to fame, the house where William Howard Taft spent much of his childhood. When I had a chance to live in an apartment there, I jumped at the opportunity. With that said, whenever something about Taft hits my radar, whether it be a funny photo or a song about how fat he was, I get excited. I did not expect 99% Invisible to offer anything about Taft, but then they introduced me to one of the strangest political and historical stories I've encountered: The Billy Possum.

Chronicle trailer

This trailer popped up before my viewing of Sherlock Holmes 2: Game of Disappointments over the weekend, and though it garnered a mixed reaction from my group of movie-going friends, I thought it looked pretty interesting in a 'First season of Heroes' kind of way.


Other trailers before Sherlock included The Hobbit, John Carter and BATTLESHIP. I have a feeling 2012 is going to be the year of guilty pleasure sci-fi. Not that The Hobbit is guilty pleasure. Ahem.

Stryder's Favourite Comics...Release Date 1/4/2012

Now that we've had all the excitement of moving beyond the new 52 earlier this week, perhaps we're ready to return to more familiar ground!  Only three comics for me, but two out of three of them are two of my favourite monthlies.  Then there's Green Arrow.  Let's see what we've got...

Action Comics #5 - Last month's Action comics ended with a large chunk of Metropolis having been stolen by an alien being who calls himself "The Collector" and essentially behaves like Brainiac, but probably isn't quite yet (speculation).  You can forget all that though, cause this month takes us back to a time when Kal-El was an itty bitty little super baby and the planet Krypton still hung majestically in space.  You know, for about 5 more minutes.  I liked this issue.  The origin keeps to the basic facts that we all know and love but manages to stay interesting by adding a few extra elements that will certainly pay off in story dividends down the line.  Plus, seeing the destruction of Krypton as drawn by Andy Kubert is totally worth the four bucks.   Not only that, but there's a cute bonus story about a young couple named John Kent and Martha Clark,  their wedding day, their hopes and dreams and struggles to conceive a child in this topsy-turvy world.  I always like a couple pages of characterization and back story...helps keep things real.  You know, relatively speaking...we are still talking about believing a man can fly, of course...

Or even JUMP over tall buildings?

Under the Man-croscope: Mad About Balls.

Tremble before The Man-croscope! A highly calibrated scientific device that closely examines that which you treasured as a child, with the uncaring, cynical gaze of a belligerent adult. What will its long, phallic lens fall upon this time?

I hate balls. Not my own - they're reliable enough - I mean sports balls. I'm afraid of them. I lived in fear as a child that someone would throw a ball at or near me and that I would have to catch it or throw it back. Sports are my Kryptonite and balls are the evil, spherical harbingers of uncoordinated humiliation.

But we males are shallow, easily manipulated fellows. As men all you need to do to appeal to us is add boobs, meat, beer, fire, or a leather seat. And as young boys all we needed to cause longing were monsters, exposed brains, snot, blood, and stitches. Would hideous additions like these be enough to make me purchase an accursed ball?

Why yes, Dear Reader. I am, of course, talking about Mad Balls, the pungent foam fad that every child in the eighties was excited about. Check them out...

Image from the very awesome Branded in the 80's which has a wonderful collection of vintage stickers such as these. Go there now even. You have nothing to lose! Trust me, I've read the rest of this article.

 And join me after the jump and I'll tell you which ones I had and what it was all about!

Kickstart the Week: Oceanverse: The Collected Edition by Michael Schwartz

This is a great example of web comic to print perfection. The Oceanverse comic looks really cool and definitely like something I would love to read, but it looks like you can't access the archives during the Kickstarter campaign. Actually, it's really hard to find any images right now. They are on serious lockdown. Probably a good idea, but I want to read some samples!

Click through the jump for more details and info.

Tumblr Rulz And So Do iPhone Whales

There are so many good Tumblr accounts. I've been posting links as I've seen them, but I'm going to go ahead and make it a regular thing here at Fruitless Pursuits. I've mentioned it behind the scenes a few times (in our secret contributor underground lair), but the Tumblr account that I was just shown is forcing me to put my new column into effect immediately!!

It's called Tumblr Rulz and today we are featuring iPhone Whales. And, like I did, you may ask... "What exactly is an iPhone Whale?"

This is an iPhone Whale.

Many more after the jump, and all of them can be seen at http://iphone-whale.tumblr.com/.

Coles - No Added Whore Moans

Australian grocery retailer Coles has just released a new ad for their butchery department, (literally) singing the virtues of their beef with 'No Added Hormones'. What they have REALLY done is created the advertising equivalent of 'The Room'; something so horrendously bad that it almost comes full circle and is good again.


I'm so sorry guys. Even Australia's favourite celebrity criminal Mark 'Chopper' Read has expressed disgust at this ad, and when a guy who had his prison buddy chop his ears off for teh lulz finds something excruciating, then you know it's BAD.

What are YOUR favourite terrible ads, reader friends?

Board Game Unboxing: Cars 2 Sorry! Sliders

Sorry! Sliders has become a Christmas tradition in our house, and this year I got the Cars 2 version, subtly titled "Disney Pixar Cars 2 Sorry! Sliders World Grand Prix Race Edition". Try to remember that one, kids!

The original Sorry! Sliders is kind of a mass market customizable shuffleboard game, but the Cars 2 edition is much more than just a re-theme. It's a completely different game, with a full customizable racetrack that feels very much like everyone's favorite... Pitch Car! The game is a little pricier than I realized ($20-$25) but hopefully mega-giant Hasbro will release some generic track packs so you can design more detailed courses without having to pay mega-bucks for the licensing and extra pieces.

Curious as to what's in the box? I have a bunch of pictures and thoughts after the jump.

GFTROU: Stupid Zombies

Christmas break is OVER, so time for the return of Games For The Rest of Us, the series by and for the casual gamer. I must admit I barely touched my phone for gaming purposes over the holidays, but it was largely due to being re-caught in the evil clutches of World of Warcraft. Damn you WoW. Despite spending much of my time in Azeroth, I did manage to find a tasty treat to serve up to you this week; Stupid Zombies by GameResort.