This one spooked my wife...

I came across a link to this story from Unknown Country. There's an accompanying video which has gotta be seen to be believed!



After my wife watched the video, we had a long discussion over whether or not the creature (if it was real and not made in some special effects shop) could really be classified as an alien or not. We reasoned that even though it didn't look human, that didn't mean it came from another planet. Afterwards, it made me realize how watching and reading lots of sci-fi and fantasy might make contact with non-human beings easier to grasp and contemplate.

Again, with the WOW envy...

Over at WOW.com, there's an announcement of a new version of the WOW Modelviewer.

When I was playing COH, I found out about this and instantly saw its possibilities for creating comics and machinima. So of course I posted on the COH message boards about something like it being available for CO*. No one else seemed to share my interest as they only kept going on about the CO* EULA. How about an official dev-created version, I asked? Nope, nothing more than declaring I was pipedreaming with more reminders of firm statements about the EULA.

It was one of the many times I felt like CO* would be stuck in a dead end if it was being run by people who posted on the forums.

Not dead yet...

Now that the sidekicks are in school, I have my computer back!

Only one more year and one more sidekick left before I'm left alone at home during the day. Then... surely, there will come a cleaning!!

...because this last little sidekick tries to help with the care and cleaning of the secret lair. It's tough cleaning the giant robot dinosaur if she keeps activating its controls. Sheesh!! Do you know how hard it's going to be to get those burn marks out of the floor?

Time to welcome... DOC OPTIK!!

Time to say adieu to Champions Online characters Frostmane and Lasy Sting (sic! Yes, I know! I misspelled my character's name!) as their Closed Beta personas went the way of Doc Mentat before them.

Time to say hello to Doc Optik, the hero with the eye-based powers!






Here we have Defender, offering tips to the new hero on the block:



Funny thing... my screen captures don't seem to grab any of the particle effects depicted in-game. No glowy zaps...

The Power of SHAZAM!!

...once again stymies Hollywood! Topless Robot has their own take.

John August has a telling quote:

I chatted with one of the "Shazam!" producers, Michael E. Uslan, and he told me even then that any Captain Marvel movie's great challenge would be answering one question: If you were a little kid who could turn into an all-powerful, handsome adult, why on Earth would you ever change back?

Wow. It sounds like someone in Hollywood had a rotten childhood and can't imagine why they'd go through being a youngster all over again. The Howling Curmudgeons offer their own take on Mr. Uslan's reasoning.

To me, Captain Marvel is an easy concept: a young decent optimistic kid, powerless in his normal circumstances, changes into a decent, optimistic superhero (think Christoper Reeve's Superman) to have adventures and to stop bad guys adults seem powerless to stop. There could be a bit of satire (as in Jeff Smith's version) showing adults as kind of... dopey or blind or too willing to give up their power to think for themselves or living in fear to do the right thing. Plus it could be about using imagination, which seems to be a thing stamped out of "normal" adults. These are not themes foreign to Hollywood movies, it's just that trying to apply them while trying to duplicate or surpass the success of "The Dark Knight" may not produce a movie most people will want to watch.

A good Captain Marvel movie would be closer in spirit and tone to something released by Pixar, something with heart and adventure. It's tough imagining "The Incredibles" or "Up" in a "Dark Knight" mold but I think that's the weird knot that's keeping the movie from being made.

Verminator Pejorative

I'll probably load this up to one of my galleries, but it's kinda late and I'm tired...

Playing around a bit with the Sixus1 Vermin set. Added a couple of giant rat monster pets. I should probably add some bats or something too.

WOW Envy. Again.

I know I should probably just play World of Warcraft and stop wallowing in envy. But then I see how I barely play during the Champions Online Beta even though it's free, and I have a tough time justifying the monthly fee.

But one thing I've noticed is the active online community I see surrounding WOW.

Compare that to the listing of fan sites at the COH website. It's kinda depressing how many of the websites haven't been updated since 2005. Sheesh! One blog I do follow is Blog of Heroes, and even the owner's starting to look over to see what Champions Online is up to.

Meanwhile, sites like WOW.com keep fans appraised of new developments and geekery surrounding WOW.

Does anyone know of any sites that are still interested in COH enough to keep up with news, developments, and fan-related activity?