Klingon Propoganda

I can't tell what they are saying, but it gets across well enough.

Made of WIN!... and sacraledge

The Greatest American Hero

Apparently that song was tied to this show. Of which suddenly makes that skit of Peter imitating 'Jackass' make sense.

I'd post a clip of that one bit... but for the life of it, I can't find one. So have some eye surgery instead.

My Bro's Awesome Repainted

Final Fantasy

Worth postin...

Brave Little Toaster Tribute

EMBED-The Brave Little Toaster Tribute - Watch more free videos

Revisiting the movie with my wife from memory, providing just the highlights, depressed the hell out of me. The movie is deep, far deeper than what you typically get from an animated film released by Disney (it was produced outside- I had to look that up, but it makes sense given the gravity and subtle subject material).

This is one of those films that I thought I might have been reading too much into. It's a kids movie with the animation department that would later do most of Disney's daily cartoons and with one of the lead characters voiced by Jon Lovitz. It's beautiful in that role of a simple kids cartoon that I foundly remember as a child. And I do read into things too much sometimes for both comedic and serious effect (a characteristic embued both by my father and countless over analytical English Literature teachers).
Turns out, I'm not alone at all in my rather grim take on the otherwise colorful setting that "The Brave Little Toaster" has. Rather, the internet generally justifies that depressing stance that the film is vaguely religious and a journey into the moralities involving self worth and death.

Again... this is 'Disney' movie.
But to be fair, it's as 'Disney' as "Spirited Away"...only produced in America.

And this tribute really brings out the grim (almost fairy tale-ish in the classic sense) nature of the film adults probably notice more than kids.

And the most depressing, and catchy, song of the movie:



Just a little bit of analysis on this one: These cars are desperately telling one another of their lives, the things they loved and their accomplishments as the junk yard crane descends through the clouds like an angel of death. And when their time is come short, their life, ambitions, and stories are declared worthless- and meeting the same inevitable end everyone else does.
How is that not depressing?

Top 107 Things I'd Do If I Was In A SCI FI Op Team

Not mine, but funny:

1. I would refuse to go into the underground research facility.

2. I would refuse to go into the deep-space research facility.

3. I would refuse to go into the deep-sea research facility.

4. I would refuse to go into the radio-blacked out colony.

5. I would refuse to go into the derelict alien ship.

6. I would refuse to go into the abandoned ghost ship.

7. If I was then forced into attempting any of the above six missions, I would attempt to go AWOL. Prison showers are almost certainly preferable to what awaits.

8. When going on a mission, I would certainly carry more than one gun. I would carry as many as humanly possible.

9. In line with #8, I would carry more than one clip per gun. I have a belt, and I intend to fill it.

10. If the hallways of the operations area are big enough to allow it, I intend to bring along a small field artillery piece as well.

11. No matter what my commanding officer says, if my job is to plant a nuclear device to destroy the facility/ship, it is not necessary for me to endanger my life by traveling to the center of the structure to plant the bomb, I'm sure the entrance will prove just as effective.

12. If my job is to disable the A/I system that runs the facility/ship, and this would require me to go to the center of the structure, I will just plant a small nuclear device at the entrance. If the blast doesn't get it, the EMP will.

13. If I am equipped with body armor, and it proves ineffective against whatever killed everyone in the facility/ship, I will ditch it and use the saved weight to carry more guns.

14. Along the same lines, if the body armor is ineffective and so are the guns, I will ditch both and set a new track record on my way out of the ops area.

15. I will refuse to wear any helmet that restricts my peripheral vision and does not allow me to see something rising up/dropping down right beside me.

16. I will request to be equipped with a helmet that has a small HUD linked to a camera on the back of my helmet. An additional HUD linked to a upward-pointing top mounted camera would be nice as well.

17. If I am going into some top secret facility that has lost radio communication with the outside world, I will make damn sure that I am in possession of a high quality, up to date map in a form that will not be rendered unreadable by contact with liquid.

18. If I could not obtain a map, and found myself lost/trapped in the facility, I would not rely on the unstable, homicidal central A/I to provide me with escape routes.

19. If I am inside a facility/ship after the stuff has hit the fan, and find myself without a map, I will head to the nearest computer terminal and consult Yahoo! Maps. The facility was built by a corporation or the government, and they can certainly afford an internet connection.

20. If there is a self-destruct mechanism or impenetrable blast doors set on a running timer within the building/ship I am ordered to enter, I will guard the entrances until the timer runs out, then leave. The problem will take care of itself eventually, so there is no need to risk myself.

21. If mine is not the first team to be sent into the area, I will take a little time off to wonder why.

22. If the music suddenly gets really creepy, start spinning around with your finger on the trigger. Whoever was guarding your back is probably gone by this point anyway.

23. Before I go on each mission, I will rent Aliens, Resident Evil, Event Horizon, and other similar movies for pointers. I will defer the costs to my employer as "training expenses".

24. If there is something dripping from the ceiling up ahead, I won't bother to check if it's just water. I will leave the area immediately by the quickest available route.

25. If I hear odd noises, I will not be foolish enough to investigate it alone. I will take a friend. Or two. With big guns.

26. If I am ordered to investigate the noise by my commanding officer, I will take everyone else in the squad with me. By the time we return to where the CO was waiting, the problem will probably have solved itself.

27. If I am forced to walk underneath a hole in the ceiling, I will be cautious. I will investigate it thoroughly with high explosives.

28. Likewise, If I hear odd noises coming from the ceiling, I will not lift up a panel and stick my head up to have a look around. I will lift up the panel and shove a grenade up there.

29. Similarly, if I am forced to pass a hole/grate in the walls or floor, I will throw a grenade in to make sure its clear now, and set proximity mines to make sure it is clear later.

30. Unless it is my last chance for survival, I will never go into any type of ventilation shaft. I know that whatever chased me up there will almost certainly be able to move faster than me in an enclosed space.

31. I will always take some sort of sword with me in addition to a multitude of projectile weapons. That way, when I run out of ammunition, and I will, I won't have to ineffectually slap at an opponent before being killed.

31a. Along similar lines, if I am issued only laser/particle beam/mag-accelerated weapons, I will acquire and carry a gunpowder slugthrower. Thus, if something nullifies electronics, I can still shoot whatever wants to eat me.

32. Knowingly entering a facility where illegal genetic research is being performed would be consigning myself to death by stupidity. Therefore, I wouldn't enter, even if this entailed killing the rest of my team to avoid it.

33. I would never enter a dark room. I would throw in a handful of grenades and move on, assured that if anything is still alive in there, it isn't happy.

34. I wont make the mistake of shooting something with my smallest gun first, and then working my way up through the larger firearms. I would start with my biggest gun, and if that didn't work, run like hell.

35. If I was sent off with only one companion, I would make sure it is someone I could outrun. That way, I can get away while whatever was chasing us chews on him.

36. If there are women on the team, I will never sleep with them right before a mission. One or the other of us will almost certainly not make it back, and I don't like 50/50 odds.

37. If a team-member disappears mysteriously for a long period of time and the just as mysteriously reappears, I will shoot them immediately and save myself a lot of trouble.

38. I will periodically look up. The importance of this can never be overstated.

39. If I am in a genetic research lab and there are lots of cages whose steel doors have been torn out, I will think about how much punishment those doors could take. Then I will think about how much punishment my frail human body can take. Then I will start thinking about where those exits were.

40. No matter how tempted I am, I will never deactivate the main power grid in a research facility. I know there is a reason that those doors are magnetically locked and electrified.

41. I will also never deactivate the main computer in a facility. Even though its automated defenses may be slaughtering the rest of the team, they are still holding back whatever killed the original occupants.

42. I will stay away from any elevators. Nothing good ever comes from an elevator in these situations.

43. I will never negotiate with whatever is trying to kill my team. The dialogue will almost certainly be along the lines of "Me hungry, you food".

44. If one of my team-members gets bitten, cut, sprayed with, or otherwise exposed to a bio-agent, I will kill them immediately. They will only turn on me, and the antidote never works anyway.

45. The sexiest female will always make it out, mainly because she is surrounded by men who willingly throw themselves in the path of anything that attempts to harm her. I will stay close to that female, and when I am the last male left, I will throw her in the path of whatever is attempting to harm us.

46. I will make sure that when I finally make my exit from the ops area, I have conserved a decent amount of ammunition. Something always goes wrong during the escape.

47. If I find only one survivor from among 500 or so people, I will not trust them. They had to do something to survive the carnage that killed 500 people, and I don't think it was just run really fast.

48. I will make sure the team will under no circumstances split up. It never helps.

49. If upon arriving in the ops area I hear a lot of screams from inside or see a lot of obviously mutilated dead bodies, I will leave the ops area and come back later. With more people. And bigger guns.

50. I will train myself to keep my cool under pressure well enough to hit a head sized target at a range of 10 feet.

51. I will request that any ops team I am a part of be issued body armor with environmental resistance, which provides protection from things like fire, airborne viruses, and acid.

52. I will also request that aforementioned armor have a reflective mirrored surface, to help with those pesky automated laser defenses.

53. If I see something in the shadows up ahead that at first glance does not appear human, I will forgo taking the time for a second look and lob a grenade at it instead.

54. If I see something in the shadows up ahead that at first glance appears vaguely human, I will forgo taking the time for a second look and lob a grenade at it instead.

55. If I see something in the shadows up ahead that at first glance appears human, I will forgo taking the time for a second look and lob a grenade at it instead. Better safe than sorry.

55a. If I see something in the shadows up ahead I will forgo taking the time for a second look and lob a grenade at it instead. Better safe than sorry.

56. If multiple survivors are found during the course of the mission, they will be given a gun and told to make themselves useful.

57. However, if these survivors created or want to study whatever depopulated the facility/ship, they will not be given guns as they cannot be trusted to use them at the crucial moment, due to their conflict of interests.

58. Between missions I will lobby for legislature to require all secret research facilities to have heavily stocked ammo dumps in easily accessible, well marked locations.

59. If my team is required to use motion detectors, they better be able to scan 360 degrees, not merely 90.

60. If the body count is currently over 500, I will politely inform my superiors that an 8-man operations team isn't going to cut it.

61. If any member of the team is prone to claustrophobia, diver's high, space-mania, or panic attacks, I will deliver a request to the CO that they be left behind, instead of just being given a pep talk.

62. If any member of the team proves to be a corporate/government spy, I will shoot them before anyone else can react, saving the trouble of taking them prisoner only so they can escape later and sabotage the mission.

62a. If there is a sudden illness with any member of my team and a new member is added at the last minute, I will shoot them before anyone else can react.

63. I will recommend that any form of transportation we have be parked well away from the trouble spot, and that the operator stays in it and keeps the doors sealed until the team is standing outside and ready to leave.

63a. If my escape vehicle was on the ground the entire time I was fighting the monster/alien/genetic abombination/etc. I will destroy it. Whatever I thought I killed was on board.

64. If we have a spare transport I will recommend that we have a spare pilot as well, to save having to remote control fly the transport in if something happens to the first.

65. If any member of the team takes a revolver on the mission, I will take it from them, hand them an automatic, and then slap them silly for being so stupid.

66. I will ensure that all guns have perfectly calibrated laser sights, even if I must pay for them myself, so that missing a headshot is inexcusable.

67. If the team gets out of an operations area and find we are missing a man, I will recommend we leave his ***. He should have kept up in the first place.

68. If our mission is to shut down a rogue A/I, I will not discuss our plans in any room with a visible camera and/or audio pickup.

69. Screw shoulder-mounted flashlights, I'll carry a pair of night vision goggles even if the cost has to come out of my paycheck.

70. The same goes for little pen-lights. I will carry a 3 foot mag-lite with a halogen bulb. That way, not only do I get a huge flashlight range, it can double as a club in tight situations.

70a. I will remember that if the monsterous creature is within clubbing range, it is a tight situation, and start clubbing. This is true even if my firearm still works. No reason not to club and shoot at the same time.

71. If I am low on ammunition, I won't hesitate to roll the bodies of my teammates for ammo. They certainly don't need it anymore.

72. If I learn that the beings we are fighting have acid for blood or that their blood contains some sort of bio-agent, I will make damn sure I am at least 15 feet away from any I shoot.

73. If my team possesses an APC, but it won't fit into the corridors of the ops area, I'll rectify the situation with explosives instead of going in on foot.

74. Just in case my opponents will be using cloaking devices that short out upon contact with water, I will always carry a small super-soaker pistol with me on missions.

75. If I am forced to pick a position within a facility from which to make a last stand, it will not be a room which can easily be breached by going above the ceiling or under the floor.

76. If I hear a low hissing or moaning directly behind me, I will take off running without thinking. Whatever it is, its first bite of me is going to be ***.

77. If anyone in the squad has a flamethrower, I will make sure everyone else is trained to instinctively duck whenever he even begins to turn around.

78. When the team's mission is to plant a bomb I will make sure we have more than one bomb, and more than one person who knows how to plant it.

79. If I am going into an area in where research in biological warfare was occurring, I will not remove my gas mask before entering the facility.

80. If there is a countdown to an explosion or the sealing off of the facility, I will set my watch timer 10 minutes ahead of that to give myself a margin of safety.

81. If any of the people we've rescued or one of my team members starts to convulse and scream, ill have the guy with the flamethrower hose them down and then move on. If it is the napalm guy I'll just shoot the tank. Whatever made them do it, I seriously doubt it was a cramp.

82. If my team has heavy weaponry with us, I will not wait until there are only a few people left and we are surrounded and in dire straits to use them. I will use them as early and as often as possible.

83. Similarly, if I have a large ship in orbit over the planet, and find out that there are no survivors in a heavily infested area, I will call for an orbital bombardment of the hot zone.

84. If I hear odd noises coming from a grate nearby, I won't stare quizzically at it and shine a weak flashlight beam through the grate, I will immediately empty my current clip into the grate then kick it in and send a grenade into the tunnel.

85. If we have prisoners, and one of them is talking to me steadily in a calm voice while staring behind me, I will immediately dive to the side and roll to hose whatever was about to attack me. I will show the same response if a team-member looks behind me with an expression of horror.

86. If I address a query to the guy that should be behind me, and receive no immediate response, I will immediately break into a dead run, dropping grenades along the way.

87. If I find that rooms marked on my map as dining halls turn out to be full of stasis chambers and odd piping instead, I will immediately leave the ops area and refuse to enter until I get a damn good explanation.

88. If we manage to ambush whatever was killing us, and I hear a high pitched beeping and it starts laughing, I will be smart enough to just start running, instead of searching it for the timer.

89. I will never walk through water any deeper than I can see down into. I won't walk in the water period if there is electric cabling nearby.

90. Any transports that we bring into the ops area and intend to use to escape will have cameras on the outside to allow us to scan for unwanted guests.

91. Along the same line, the landing bay/pad we return to will have several large turrets to take care of any stowaways we miss.

92. I will point out to my superiors that if the corporation/government has enough money to fund an 8 man black ops team, they have enough damn money to buy us a remote controlled robot with cameras that we can send in to scout the area first.

93. My favored method of advance down a dark corridor will be with a five-man team, the first man hosing down the corridor in front, the second throwing a grenade, the third hauling the huge cart of ammo and explosives, the fourth throwing a grenade behind us, and the fifth hosing down the corridor behind. Take ten steps, repeat.

94. My favored method of advance down a well-lit corridor will be with a five man team, the first man hosing down the corridor in front, the second throwing a grenade, the third hauling the huge cart of ammo and explosives, the fourth throwing a grenade behind us, and the fifth hosing down the corridor behind. Take ten steps, repeat.

95. If a cat comes flying out of a vent, scaring the crap out of me, I will unload a clip into the vent. *Something* scared the cat.

95a. I will shoot any cat encountered during the mission.

96. I will hold the belief that heavy breathing from the nearby darkness is not to be investigated. It is to be used for target practice.

97. Warning shots are for wusses. Fire for effect, that's my motto.

98. If the other people with me have all disappeared, I won't bother wandering around the immediate area looking for them and yelling their names, peering into dark rooms.

99. When any member of my squad dies, I will have them hosed down with the flamethrower or plant a proximity mine on them. No use feeding or increasing the numbers of whatever is trying to kill us.

100. If I die on a mission, it will be because I snapped my neck trying to look everywhere at once.

101. I will never show any members of the mission pictures of my fiancée/wife/kids who I can't wait to get back to after the mission is over.

102. I will never discuss with anyone the length of my enlistment and brag how "short" I am.

103. I will never discuss with anyone the fact that this is my last mission before retirement.

104. I will kill every new life form I encounter. A dead life form is just as valuable to the scientist back home as a live one is.

105. I will kill every one I encounter in suspended animation. They won't feel it anyway.

106. I will obey orders, not be overly comical or friendly with civilians present, I will not swear and I will not be immoral. I do not wish to die first as an example of how bad our enemies are.

106a. I will not be ethnic.

106b. I will not be English.

106c. I will not be a relative to anyone else on the team.

107. I will nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

MAD-5L

Ostroc

I'm working on the lighting for these pics...

I really don't like how the Ostroc came out. I toyed with some inking steps to help highlight and bring out the details... and I think this is an improvement... but over all... I just don't like it. I'm not sure why.

Liao Catapult

11 Years too long?

I think the last time I painted a Battletech mini was in either '98/'99. That seems like forever ago now, as almost another life time. Things are different these days with time not only being somewhat precious, but precipitously flowing away faster than I can account for it. And that's saying nothing of the people that have entered and left my life in the interim and how I changed for it.

Regardless, I present the Longbow LGB-12C. When I saw the resculpt I more or less fell in love with it and decided to pickup the miniature painting habit again and start a Cappellan military. It's something different for me (Capellan) and I tried to keep the communist Chinese overtones with the styling. This miniature was considerably more challenging to paint than it first appears.

But it looks nice against the terrain in the background. Which after construction, I'm thinking is considerably over engineered.

Black Lagoon

Black Lagoon
"The best Cowboy Bebop since Cowboy Bebop"

The above states my sentiments as succinctly as possible. I'm a fan of Bebop and it's overall (some would say, over-) production and putting it in the same league is high praise. It's not quite there though. That is to say, it aspires to the level of Bebop and falls somewhere short despite exuding the same level of style, execution and charm.
But the music is sharp, inspired and thematically appropriate. The setting is just original enough to feel fresh. And the characters are as loveable as they are flawed. Even the English dubbing comes across as enjoyable from time to time with Maryke Hendrikse aptly giving life to Revy. So well played was both the script and acting that there was a strong emotional response from myself in the final acts.
...Which is a tough sell to get from me typically. This places it among a handful of films that ever got such a reaction.

Clocking in at 2 seasons and only 24 episodes long, it's easy to watch and is not a breathless abomination most animes dredge toward either (will Full Metal Alchemist ever end?). I only wish I didn't sporadically watch it over the course of a few months. While I can't pick out a lull in particular, the last act had me riveted. I really just don't watch anime like I used to.